12 Impressions After 1 Year of Writing

What I've learned about myself and my writing after the first 12 months in the game.

Photo by Saketh on Unsplash

Great, I made it! Now, it’s time to step back and see how far I’ve gone and how much I’ve enjoyed the ride.

You know, glance into the rearview mirror and take a last look at the mountains that fade away in the distance. Think of all the twisted roads I had to drive to make it through and the amazing view the mountains offered me.

The ride is a metaphor for my experiment to see whether or not writing is an activity I would do if money were no issue. The twisted roads stand for all the ups and downs I faced — the failures, learnings, and successes. The views are the meaningful relationships, the feedback, and the good vibes I received along the way.

So, here are my impressions after one year of writing.

1. Write as I Would Talk

I’ve heard before about finding your writing voice. But I had no idea what it meant.

What I found out is that for me, the best way to write is like I would talk to a friend. I even imagine myself talking with him while I’m typing. Depending on the subject, I chat with different people in my head.

Sometimes, I even talk to myself in the 2nd person. Or with me about me in the 3rd person.

It’s the same way I prepare for a presentation, use my day-by-day vocabulary, and try to sound natural. I visualize myself in front of the audience and write my presentation as I would deliver it. Then I practice the delivery and iterate over the presentation to make it clearer and condensed.

Trying to sound fancy doesn’t work for me. When I enter this path I usually get stuck and the flow dies.

2. It’s a Way to Procrastinate

I never talked about this, but for a long time now, I have wanted to develop an app to put my goal-achieving system into motion.

First, I considered starting a newsletter to document my journey and get exposure to people who might buy into my idea. But then I realized I didn't know how to write, so I thought I would be better if I grew this skill first. That gave me the idea to use the newsletter to document my goal-achieving process. Shortly after, I started to think that I needed more and more subscribers before I could validate my business idea.

Without realizing I slid on a slippery slope. One way or another, it’s yet another excuse to procrastinate on starting a business.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I started this newsletter. Now I understand why and how writing is a must-have skill. In fact, writing is complementary to a whole batch of other abilities: self-awareness, self-promotion and marketing, structuring ideas and thoughts, public speaking, and many more.

However, I still have to think seriously about what kind of business I want to build and how to use writing as a tool for growing it.

3. I’m Not a Writer

I've read authors on Medium who seem to write only to hit a random publishing target. And I've read passionate authors on Substack who captivate you with breathtaking stories.

I don't find myself in any of the styles above. I’m not a writer. I’m an engineer who writes. I’m a father who writes. I’m an amateur photographer who writes. I’m a runner who writes. But I’m not a writer.

Realizing this made me understand that my goal isn’t to become a six-figure writer. My goal is to become just a little bit better every day. And writing is a tool that helps me achieve this.

But somehow I surrounded myself with passionate writers and, apart from the amazing tips and advice I got from them, it created an invisible pressure to write and publish as I dream of becoming a full-time writer.

Which is not the case.

That’s why is important to remind myself why I got here in the first place.

Writing daily is more important than publishing weekly. Publishing is not the main goal. Writing is. Publishing is just a side effect. Becoming a six-figure writer is a side effect.

4. Writing It’s a Full-Time Job

I already have a full-time job that I enjoy. I don’t need another one.

After I started publishing, I realized I was only scratching the surface. Below that surface, I found a complex new domain, an entire industry.

Let me compare it with the software engineering industry. It’s easier.

When you decide to become a programmer, you need to develop your technical skills — learn programming languages and frameworks, master your IDE, study the principles, patterns, and practices of software design, and struggle to find proper names for your variables and methods.

Then you realize that this is not a solitary activity; you are now part of a team, and you need to develop human skills — communication, giving and receiving feedback, empathy, managing expectations, and estimations, to name a few. Oh, and not to forget the management principles of balancing scope, quality, time, and costs.

Once you start digging, what was “I want to build apps for a living” quickly becomes an overwhelming rabbit hole.

Writing this newsletter is a similar experience.

It’s quite overwhelming as there are a lot of hard and human skills to develop — writing and editing skills, language and vocabulary, expressions, writing titles, social media, self-promotion, connecting with my readers, and a lot more.

And that’s a lot on the table for me. It feels like a job and not like a side project anymore. Instead of energizing me, it can easily turn into an energy-draining machine.

Now I know, I have to find a balance. I need to slow down and be more meaningful about it. The first thing on my list, drop the self-imposed deadlines and allow myself to explore and experiment more.

5. Done Is Better than Perfect

Let me repeat this. Done is better than perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Making real progress is better than a perfect plan on paper.

I tend to be a perfectionist. In the early days of my career, I marked that on my resume as a positive thing. As if it was a good thing to brag about. But it isn’t. For me, it meant only one thing: kill projects before they got to see the daylight.

And this is a bummer because, in the long term, it creates frustration and regret.

If I think about it, this pursuit of perfection is what killed my previous writing initiatives. My English skills suck, and I would always think of how my readers might judge me when they get across the basic grammar and spelling issues.

I guess, it was far easier not to do it at all.

But things don’t seem to work like that. Most readers connect to the idea and the emotion behind the writing and easily get over trivial mistakes.

This is a relief because it means I can focus on writing and less on editing until everything is perfect.

6. It’s an Emotional Roller Coaster

There have been weeks when I didn’t know what to write about. My mind was blank. Or when I started writing about a subject I thought I had something to say about, only to stare at the same paragraph for days.

Then there were times when I got so excited about an idea or topic that I literally could not fall asleep, thinking about how to implement and deliver on the idea.

Sometimes, I felt the pressure to publish to my self-imposed weekly schedule. Other times, I was excited like a kid on Christmas day that I managed to deliver what I’d set my mind to.

Writing is a great way to train my mind to execute and deliver on my ideas and learn how to ride the emotional rollercoaster. Break my mental barriers. Learn how to enjoy the process.

7. I’m My Number-One Supporter

You already know this — sometimes, life simply happens without any warning, and you can’t do much about it.

However, there is always at least one thing you can do: be kind to yourself.

Maybe you got a cold, you had a rough night, or the job at the office was exhausting and overwhelming. Perhaps ideas don’t seem to pop up this time. No matter what life throws at you, try to be your number one supporter. You need one.

The last thing you need in your life is a jackass to trash you when you are at your lowest. It’s even worst when that jackass is you.

Just jump back on the horse when you fall and continue your ride.

8. Write for an Audience

Until recently, I thought it was enough to journal with bullet points, as I do when I take notes. It’s fast and it helps me put my thoughts on paper. It’s a relief for my brain.

However, I didn’t know that writing feels more like therapy when I write for reading, even though there’s nobody actually reading. When I have an audience in my mind, it forces me to organize my thoughts, to make them clearer, and easy to follow.

Throughout the day I still take notes as bullet points and jot down my thoughts and feelings shortly and briefly to capture them. But, when I intend to write or journal, I’m writing for an audience, even when it looks like I’m talking to myself.

9. Document My Process

I like to share my process. By doing so I hope I will positively impact somebody else’s life, like others have improved my life through their work.

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
— Isaac Newton

That’s why the articles I like the most are the ones that document my process or share my experience with the things I’ve tried and I had great results. Or share a project I implemented that could bring value to other people.

With other issues, I repackaged information that is already out there on the internet without adding any value to the reader. Maybe, I could have just pointed out the original content, and let the reader know why I recommend them.

Sometimes I would repackage content only to hit my publishing target, not allowing myself enough time to put the concept into practice and add my own experience.

A few issues took me weeks to finish because I felt I was faking them and publishing them would not align with how I see things at all.

But overall, I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve put out there because as I tap into what I do, how I do it, and — most importantly — why I do it. These are the things I like to talk about when I hang out with my friends or chit-chat at meetups.

For the next phase of the newsletter, I want to continue my initiative to share my experience, the things I’ve tried and experimented with, and how they helped me evolve in the process. Oh, and stop repackaging information that is already available on the internet. Maybe it’s worth adding a section to share this kind of information. 🤔

Speaking about repackaging, I think it is worth doing it for some of my previous work by converting workshops and presentations into articles, email-based courses, or ebooks.

10. Comments Enrich Your Perspective

When I started the newsletter, I imagined it would be a simple, email-based interaction with my readers. But Substack is more than an email newsletter provider. It’s more than a platform for writers. It’s a community.

Readers don’t just consume your thoughts, stories, and insights. They engage with your writing. And they add to it by sharing their perspective, experience, and thoughts.

In one way or another, comments enhance your perspective. They enrich your thoughts through the views and experiences of your readers. They challenge your beliefs and help you become better in the process.

11. Don’t Get Attached to Dopamine Numbers

It's easy to get attached to numbers such as likes, number of subscribers, or views count. But not all numbers tell the story you need to hear to guide you toward your goal. And, if those numbers also excite your dopamine hormones, then they will get you hooked and addicted to them, doing whatever it takes to get more of them.

I think it’s important to know what your goal is and why you chose that goal in the first place. Then, measure what matters most to get you closer to your goal.

For me, the goal was to “Set the foundation for The Craftsman Mindset community”, so I decided to measure 4 things I thought mattered the most:

1. Publish 52 newsletter issues, to measure consistency,

2. Reach 100 organic subscribers, as a proxy for measuring my skill to organize and deliver my thoughts and ideas coherently,

3. Receive 1 reply from at least 1 subscriber who found my content valuable, to measure the value of my writing,

4. Have at least 1 paying subscriber, to validate if this has the potential to become an income stream.

Although they are great numbers to look at when you start growing a newsletter, they got me hooked.

Looking back, I think I would have been better off if, instead of counting the subscribers, I had focused on my writing consistency and the number of meaningful comments I received.

12. Keep Writing

My most important takeaway from 12 months of writing is that I have want to keep writing.

I have no more excuses for not writing. Although I’m all over the place with my topics and don’t have a clear vision or direction yet, I have so many things I want to write about and many experiments to try out.

Maybe I will publish less, or I will try out new formats, or new types of content. I don’t know yet. I guess we’ll find out together.

However, I’m sure that if I keep writing, things will get clearer and when I reach the next road junction, I will be more mindful of which turn to take.

One thing I’m sure about, there is no way back.

—Alex