How Is the Writing Going?
Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash
“How is the writing going?”
Thank you to everyone who has asked me this recently.
It may not seem like much, but it means a lot to me when people ask me this. Not only is it a sign that people are actually interested in me and what I’m doing with my life, but it also makes me think it’s not so ridiculous to call myself “a writer”.
And so I thought I’d give you all an update on how it’s going.
Back in the New Year, I took stock of my life and decided it was time to focus properly on my writing.
I had been job hunting for six months, with no success. After a pretty terrible year, I had begun taking anti-depressants and was starting with a new therapist. And as part of this process, I came to realise I needed to set up a creative outlet in my life.
Last year I applied to some writing courses to try and get my fiction writing back on track, and actually got accepted into the Faber Academy. And so, with my girlfriend’s encouragement, I decided to take this as a sign that my writing was worth pursuing. To complement the course, I would create a schedule and use my time to write and post things regularly.
At worst, this would be something to keep me going while I continued to job hunt. But there was always that tantalising possibility that it could become something more.
But what could I write about?
I’ve had a blog for years now, but it has never had a huge about of traction. Mainly, I’ll admit, because I didn’t update that often. It had never been a priority, especially while I had a full-time job.
But the stats page showed a clear story.
Last year I’d posted every day for Polyamory Week, and these were my most-read posts by a significant margin. As in they each got hundreds of views, rather than being lucky to hit double figures.
So there it was. I would write about what people wanted to read: polyamory and my personal life.
While you’re here, I just want to take a quick moment to say that there was one person who was a significant catalyst for this process. My girlfriend, Aine.
She was the one who has encouraged me and pushed me to do this.
While I held myself back, telling myself writing was a hobby that would get in the way of hunting for a real job, or that no one would be in any way interested in anything I had to say, she insisted that I had something interesting to say, the talent to say it, and that people would want to read it.
So yes, any success I might have to down to her. She’s pretty great.
And so I create a new schedule.
Monday - A post about polyamory or relationships, posted on Medium
Wednesday - A post about my personal life, posted on my blog
Friday - A book review, posted on my blog
I created a tracker spreadsheet - because have you ever truly been a project manager if you don’t use spreadsheets at every opportunity? - gave myself three months to see how things went, and got to work.
And how has it gone?
Pretty good.
I’ve managed to get posts written and posted fairly successfully. There have been a few gaps, but I’m not beating myself up about them. This is something I’ve created to give myself a process and structure. It’s not there for me to punish myself if I miss anything.
So what are my plans going forward?
The schedule I set myself for three months seems to work for me, so I’m going to extend it for another three months and see where we are.
If anything I’m looking to build on what I'm currently doing. Because as much as one of the driving factors behind this was to give me a creative outlet, something to help me relax between job huntings, it also has potential for something more.
My Medium posts have started making me money. Not a lot, yet. But they have the potential for something more. And now I have more of a portfolio, I’m going to start looking at other avenues this could move into.
But I’m going to talk about that in a future post.
So thank you for reading.
I’d keep writing these posts, even if no one did. Half the reason I carry on is simply the fact I enjoy doing it. But the fact people are reading them, and seem to be getting something out of them, is incredibly gratifying.
Perhaps they even help some people.
I hope you continue to enjoy what I put out there.
