5 Lessons Learned from Writing Every Week for a Year

With this post, I will have completed 52 solid weeks in a row of writing online!

Going into this year, I knew it would be challenging. But I’m happy to say that I’ve come out on the other side with not only tons of content, but also a better understanding of myself and what I hope to accomplish as a writer.

Here are some valuable lessons I learned after posting a week of content for a year:

1) You Can’t Predict What Will Succeed

I learned that I’m not going to knock it out of the park with every post that I write. Some of the topics I chose to write about were dead on arrival:

Grover Goes to School was the result of a mid-year slump and having absolutely no idea what to write for the week.

But there were also some surprises. My post on Spoony / Noah Antwiler gained considerable traction on Medium and was even shared on Reddit, making it one of my most popular posts of 2021.

2) Personal Stories Do Better

My fiancé says my writing really shines when I cast the spotlight more on myself than on others. I decided to take this to heart; I spoke about my love of fanart, I exposed my shortcomings when it came to finding images for my website, and I spoke of a heartache I experienced when I was younger that helped define the person I am today.

I realized that I could espouse advice to writers, but the moments where I could offer personal anecdotes and real-life experiences positioned me as an authority where I could really connect with my readers.

3) I Learned to Niche Down

In previous years, I used to write about anything and everything.

In 2018–2019 I was especially guilty of eclectic topics; I vacillated between Spongebob, to movie and book reviews, to even my hot take on HQ Trivia.

Nowadays, I think I’ve settled into a more predictable groove with my writing. I write about the craft, but also offer advice to help newbie writers avoid the same pitfalls that I’ve encountered on my writing journey.

That’s why I wrote posts about how to avoid burnout, how to sell short stories to publications and how to navigate the complicated world of writing contests.

I even composed a comprehensive list of 100 writing tips that I’ve accumulated throughout the years.

I especially made a name for myself as an authority on Vocal.Media, at a time when not many other creators were giving authentic accounts on what it was like to write on the platform and how it compared to Medium. My take on whether Vocal.Media was a scam became one of my most popular posts in 2021.

4) I Prefer Writing Fiction

As much as I enjoyed sharing my thoughts on sylviesoul.com, it made me realize how much I missed writing just for the fun of it.

After a year of consistent writing, it started to feel like a chore, and although no one forced me to sit in front of the laptop each week and write, I found the practice necessary to really get a pulse on my interests.

I discovered I’d much rather be writing fiction. I wrote two new short stories this year, both of which will be published in 2022.

I’ve been steadily updating “Elite and Tawdry” and hope to make some real headway on the story in the new year. I’m currently working on yet another short story; when it’s done, I hope to compile a short story collection and self-publish it on Amazon.

And…then there’s my novel. 2022 is the year where I intend to make serious progress with my novel.

I’m still vacillating on the title, but for now I’ve settled on calling it Alterlife, which is the title of a song by an artist I really hope I can finally see in Toronto next year, Rina Sawayama.

I know in my heart that journalism and nonfiction writing are not what I want to do long-term. I’m not all that keen on taking on the responsibility of being an educational resource; I’d much rather inspire than educate.

5) Engagement Matters

This is the biggest takeaway from my writing 52 posts in a year. Blogs don’t get the same engagement as they did in the early 2010s.

I don’t like the idea of sharing content into a vacuum — that’s what journaling is for — and if I am going to continue building sylviesoul.com, I need to pivot my strategy.

Therefore, starting in 2022, I will no longer be posting every week.

I’m going to pare down my updates from once a week to once a month. I want to focus more of my time on crafting fiction. As such, I want to create a new short story every month, in addition to revising the current draft of Alterlife.

Furthermore, I intend for all future posts to be accompanied by a Youtube video. I fell short of my 2021 goal of one video a month, but I want to try again. I’ve had considerable engagement on Youtube, especially with my videos on the subject of Vocal media, and I’d like to harness that growth to increase traffic to my site.

This is the direction I hope to take sylviesoul.com. Less updates, but more value-based content that’s easier to consume in the online space.

I will still continue to post here, as well as on my website and on Medium, but I’ll also document my experience with newer writing platforms. Simily, which just launched this year, holds a lot of promise, and could prove to be a viable alternative to Wattpad for housing my fiction writing.

I decided my word of the year would be SOUL. It speaks to the spiritual journey I would like to take with my approach to writing, as well as zeroes in on myself as the primary focus of 2022, since the word soul encompasses part of my name.

It also brings me full circle, as it was ironically the movie Soul that had brought me back to Medium after a lengthy hiatus.

So to recap:

1) You can’t predict what will succeed

2) Personal stories do better

3) I learned to niche down

4) I prefer writing fiction

5) Engagement matters

For those of you who followed me this far, I hope you will continue to do so as I explore this new writing journey. Please subscribe to my Youtube channel. Thank you for your support!

Happy holidays, and see you in 2022!

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Sylvie is a dual American/Canadian citizen living in Toronto, Canada. She has written for numerous sites, including Screen Rant, The Spool and Midnight & Indigo. Sylvie is currently writing her first YA novel; follow her writing journey at https://sylviesoul.com and @sylvsoulwriter on Twitter.