I have been struggling with writing online since 2008.
I learned the hard way, and I am sharing the five biggest mistakes I have made so you can avoid them in your journey to becoming a digital creator.
Save yourself the frustration. Start your journey right with these lessons:
👩🏽💻 I started a blog.
Heed the advice of Nicolas Cole, don't start a blog; instead, start a social blog.
For a long time, it felt like I was writing into the void until I started social blogging more intentionally on Twitter. While having a personalized blog is important, sharing your thoughts on social media platforms will provide better visibility for your content to the audience you want to connect with, and you will no longer feel like you're writing into the abyss.
🔍 I worried about my niche.
I didn't want to start writing until I narrowed down my niche and wasted years trying to figure it out. Turns out the best way to identify your niche is just to start writing. Write consistently on whatever topic that interests you, and eventually, you will narrow down the topic you want to really focus on as a creator.
🤷🏻♀️ I thought I wasn't good enough.
I'm going to share one piece of advice from Jeff Goin's You Are A Writer: "Good is subjective". So, don't worry about being good. Instead, aim to be effective, and the only way for you to be effective is to write every day. Experiment, learn and continue to improve your craft to be better.
"No person is born great. Great people become great when others are sleeping." - African proverb.
✍🏼 I wasn't consistent.
Good writers write consistently every day. I did not cultivate a habit of writing consistently. If I did, I probably would have been a better writer than I was in 2008, with 500 over blog posts by now. 😝
😰 I feared judgement.
I feared negative feedback until I realized that getting feedback, whether good or bad, is an important part of the journey to becoming a better digital writer.
If you are embarking on your journey to become a digital creator, I hope you will learn from my mistakes.
