15 Lessons I've Learned As a Full-Time Writer

First and foremost, I learned that writing is incredibly difficult 😂. But it’s the rewarding kind of hard. It made me respect everyone who puts out a piece of content, especially quality content. I started writing my newsletter 7 months ago and I’m embarrassed to read the first 50% of my articles. They’re bad. I’m at the stage right now where I know it’s better than it was but I still have a long way to go.

Why I write and what it’s been like

Writing is a full-time job. I didn’t realise how much information I have to consume. It requires hours of reading and listening just to write a short piece.

When I have conversations, a part of my brain is automatically searching for topics and patterns I could explore in writing.
Most of the writing process is unconscious. I put in as much info as I can and at some point, a piece appears in my conscious mind. The hard part is translating from the unconscious to the conscious.
Investing time in writing something that not a lot of people read puts things into perspective for me: attention needs to be earned and the only way to earn it is to keep showing up.

English isn’t my first language and expressing myself in a second language is hard. I’ve always suspected I have a brain condition too that makes it difficult to express myself properly even in Lithuanian. It feels like I’m thinking one thing and when it comes out, it doesn’t match what I had in mind.
It’s also a (fun) struggle between expressing myself and figuring out what my readers find interesting. Sometimes I write something that I find interesting and the response is meh. Other times, I’d write something boring and people love it 🤷‍♀️

Another struggle is putting my thoughts into a coherent narrative. I think I have opinions and points of view until I need to express them in a way that others can understand.

My writing is personal and reflects whatever I’m thinking about/going through. I’m afraid of being misunderstood/rejected/taken for a lunatic because I have quite a different view of most things that are not mainstream.

I write in short form when I haven’t developed the idea fully. Long-form writing is harder but could also derail into waffling too much. You know what they say, if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it.

Writing is hard. But:

The most annoying thing about writing in the social media age is that most people have an attention span of a goldfish (including me). We are conditioned to seek feel-good content. It’s a generalisation, but my fear is creating the entertained-and-scroll-away type of content because it has no lasting value. At the same time, I’ve got to play the game.

Sometimes I re-read what I wrote and it’s at best sub-par so I don’t publish it. If someone read it and thought: “Wow that was a waste of time” I’d be disappointed. When I read something I published and think ‘That wasn’t good’ I feel annoyed that I wasted someone’s time.

Someone said I’m too harsh with myself regarding this, but I think high standards lead to quality output. I saw the perfect quote describing this:

A skill I’m cultivating is saying the same thing in fewer words. When I speak, I’m over the top and use a lot of adjectives and exaggeration whereas great writing is simple. I also run on emotion in my daily life, so writing makes me turn on the logical part of my brain.
The hardest thing so far is connecting two seemingly unrelated topics and finding core principles around them like good writers do (my favourites are Morgan Housel and Paul Graham). The more patterns a writer identifies, the more relatable the piece feels to a reader.

Receiving feedback is both flattering and valuable. Flattering because someone took the time to say a kind word. It’s more touching than I thought it would be. Feedback is valuable because it helps me see what people find interesting but it can also be distracting because everyone has their preferences.

Final words

The world is divided into two: producers and consumers. I’m convinced that in the age of AI, automation and virtual reality, people will consume more content than ever. The ones who create content will win. I have a long way to go but god knows I’m not giving up. I choose to be a producer!

Also published here.