When Writing Expectations Don’t Live up to Reality
Hello. It’s been a while since I last wrote here, perhaps even a whole month has passed. But I’m guessing there were no people to notice my absence, because, well, people aren’t seeing or reading my stories anyway, for whatever reason that may be.
I’m not going to sit here and say that life has gotten in the way and that’s the reason I haven’t been writing — because it isn’t. The reality is, I haven’t wanted to write here.
And it’s not about the insane dropping off a cliff earnings I have experienced. That sucks, big time because I used to rely on this platform to supplement my very mediocre minimum wage salary, but the bigger picture is that I’m frustrated as I’ve been spending the most part of this year putting my heart and soul into stories.
Bearing my worries, passions, and thoughts to the world with everything I had — and yet still, my words are falling flat. For example, I wrote the following stories recently and delved deep for every word.
I thought about how my life experiences could tell a story that would resonate with readers and wrote all of these in the best way I possibly could. I’m not sitting here saying they are perfect by any means, but I don’t think they deserved to die as soon as they were published.
Eyes Wide Open: How Optician Visits Transformed My Perspective on Life (16 views & $0.89 earned)
The 1 Key Writing Lesson Gained from My Time as a Bookseller (89 views & $3.54 earned)
Learning to Drive at 26 Has Taught Me Skills Beyond the Wheel (31 views & $0 .61 earned)
I know there will be people reading this who would be chuffed at those earnings or readership, but when you’ve fallen from heights of views nearing a thousand for each story, and earning the price of a weekly train ticket to work with each, all without sacrificing the quality of your writing, it feels like a kick in the teeth.
The first half of this year I had so much motivation to write on this platform. I was excited to pour over the incredible books I’d been reading to share them with the rest of the world. I loved engaging with other people’s amazing stories and reaching out and following new writers I love. But in the last few months, I’ve been getting nothing back.
It’s like a one sided friendship where you are putting in all the effort to make plans or reach out to them, but receive nothing in return. A niggling part of my brain is telling me I shouldn’t complain — but when I’m experiencing pitiful views and earning a few cents per story — I think I have the right to be annoyed and frustrated.
I’ve been writing here for four years now. I’ve had some incredible highs over that time and connected with so many like-minded people, but at the moment, it feels like I’m at the bottom of a hill I can’t climb.
Is it me or something else?
I know a lot has changed on this platform this past year, but I’ve made a conscious effort to change with it. I moved away from writing so many listicles, and instead, began to think about how my personal life experiences could be told in a way to readers that a) made for an engaging story and b) could provide some kind of life lesson for them to takeaway.
In essence, I shifted from writing so many stories about books and rather delved into how reading impacted me, how changing jobs and getting a new one shifted my perspective on life, and how health worries caused me to see the world in a new way.
I’ve penned all of my stories in recent months with real thought about how they can benefit a reader and well, tell an interesting story. But it feels like baring your soul, reaching deep, and talking about your personal struggles with the rest of the world isn’t enough.
So maybe my writing really isn’t good enough, or maybe someone at the top really has got a bee in their bonnet about me.
I started writing here in August 2020, it’s officially just been my four year anniversary. In that time I’ve seen the real highs — highs I never would have dreamed of — but now, it definitely feels like I’m experiencing the real lows.
With 7,000 followers under my belt, and what I feel is a good standard of writing and littered with ideas and thoughts that make a good story, I’m struggling to see how to move forward.
I’m not going to do one of those dramatic breakups with the platform that *cough* some well known writers have done in the past, because I don’t think that’s helpful. The algorithm may not be favouring me at the moment because of reasons I don’t know, but ditching it altogether is never going to help in the long run.
I love this space I’ve created for myself over the years. Despite recent stories not doing very well, I’m still proud of writing them and being brave enough to share them, but I think something has to change with my mindset going forward. And I’ve only just realised what that should be in the process of writing this story.
Is not trying so hard the solution to more success?
Ever since *certain* changes were made to this platform in terms of how stories are promoted (we all know what I’m talking about, but I refuse to name it in case this criticism pushes me further down the promotion list) — I’ve made a conscious effort to change the topics I’ve been writing about and the format of my articles.
As briefly mentioned, I’ve been writing long-form personal essays over listicles and book recommendations — which was how I first managed to blossom on this platform. Initially, this worked. A lot of my stories were shared and earlier on in the year I experienced a boom in earnings similar to what I had in 2021 — the year I earned the most money from blogging on this platform.
Even though I’ve been continuing this approach in the hope readers can find more value from my stories and they will be shared by the blogging gods that be — it’s not been working in the past few months.
Every story I have written has fallen flat. And I haven’t become a bad writer all of a sudden. In fact, I think the opposite is true as I now work as a full-time content writer and am more conscious than ever about how to write an engaging story.
Alas, going forward, my mindset is going to have to change so that I stay sane. I need to stop chasing the articles I think I should be writing, and the topics I think I should be leaning into because that’s supposedly what the audience on here wants to read — and instead, follow my heart.
I’ve tried writing about things that ‘should’ resonate with readers and be promoted by this platform and sticking methodically to the guidance — but following this path hasn’t worked for me recently.
It would be easy to give it up and blame the algorithm so I’m not going to stop. I’m simply going to write exactly what I want and how I want going forward because if I don’t do this, blogging will start to feel like a chore.
It’s always been a unique, creative outlet for me that I turn to to release creative energy, connect with other readers or simply get something off my chest.
It was never about the money, but you do get used to having that little boast of income every month when you’re not in the best paid job in the world. Besides, I believe every writer should be paid for their work, and it’s the minimum they deserve for sharing their stories with the world.
But without writing here, I would be worse off. However, that doesn’s mean it’s going to be easy going forward, because right now, it feels like I’m walking through thick, clumpy sand that’s weighing me down with every step and story I post.
To get through what I hope is a momentary ‘blip’ I need to lower my expectations about my ‘success’ on this platform, which is going to be the key to guiding me forward and not giving up because I’m definitely not done yet. I have so much more to say.
This blog was originally published in SYNERGY on Medium.
