I’ve Been a Writer For Six Months, and I’m Prepared To Play the Long Game

I’ve been a writer for six months now. I’m loving it more and more daily. I’m also realizing that the road to success is going to be a longer journey than I initially thought, and that is fine with me.

I fully admit that I’m not usually a patient person. I’ve always been an achiever when it comes to jobs and careers. I tend to want to see immediate results and work my tail off to make my goals happen.

But this is quite different. The other previous jobs and business ventures were mainly about making money. I’m not a greedy person. However, I always want to do well, to be able to help take care of my family, and do some fun things once in a while.

I started writing blogs to build a portfolio. I needed a portfolio to try to get hired to do content writing. A friend had started doing that a few months before I started and mentioned it could be pretty lucrative. That sounded cool to me.

I needed to make decent money at writing to justify giving it a go. With content writing, I could take on as much work as I wanted to. That idea seemed good to me. Initially.

So I wrote a blog a day on Medium for two weeks straight. Suddenly, I had a portfolio of my work. I enjoyed those first two weeks immensely. I learned about how to monetize my blog and had 100 followers on there by my fifth day.

That’s when I dove headfirst into content writing. It was a pretty easy learning curve and I became quick at completing assignments. I focused solely on that type of writing and didn’t post a blog on here for a little over a month.

It got boring. I still liked content writing better than the back-breaking carpet cleaning business I had owned and operated for the past 11 years. But I missed the creative writing aspect of blogging that I enjoyed at the beginning of my writer’s journey.

I went back to it. I hit the gym that day and thought up a great idea during my workout for my first humor blog. I wrote, The Gym When I Started, and the Gym 30 Years Later. It was my first humor piece and so fun to write. I knew I had to do more funny blogs.

But the state of our country has bothered me for quite some time. Living in a very racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic red state is not easy for a fella like myself. My Bride and our children are Asian Americans. My youngest daughter came out as a lesbian at age 13.

I have never been one to just sit idly by when people post ignorant, racist, or bigoted posts. I’ve wasted far too many hours debating these people who reside in my home state on social media. I’ve caught many Facebook bans over calling them not-so-nice things when they came at me for standing up for what was right.

I decided that I’d quit engaging in social media posts to a deaf audience and start writing blogs instead of insults. I have written a number of thought-provoking pieces about the state of our nation and how we are failing. I don’t think it’s wrong to call out your country when it needs to be better for all citizens.

One of these pieces went over big. It’s been viewed over 6700 times in two months. Its total read time is over 260 hours. It’s earned almost $600 in income for me. Check out I Truly Hate the Ignorance and Shitty Beliefs of People in My Home State. It’s controversial as well as informative while being completely honest about my views about garbage humans who discriminate.

Having one giant blog that has been viewed that many times, read that many hours, and has earned that much income left me striving for more. About this time was when I decided to put my blog as a priority ahead of the content writing.

I decided I’d continue to do the content writing and I am still doing it. But the blog comes first and is my priority. More of my time is spent on that and growing my social media following as a writer, versus focusing on the immediate income made from writing content for other people.

It’s far more satisfying. I love the creative aspect of writing humor pieces, social commentary articles, and even poetry. Yes, poetry. I never thought I’d become a poet, but here we are.

I started writing poems less than six weeks ago. I never really appreciated poetry years back in grade school, junior high, and high school. Maybe it was the older stuff they had us reading. I couldn’t wrap my head around it at the time.

I wrote my first one on a day when I couldn’t think of a good blog idea. I decided that it didn’t have to rhyme. That much, I remember from school. It was raw. It was angry. Directed at one of the worst people I’d ever known in my life. It felt GOOD to write it.

I’ve learned that for me, poetry makes me feel, It releases a lot of my emotions. All of the poems I’ve written so far have been quite angry or sad. I think I’ll soon try some happier attempts. I have a lot of love in my heart. For my family, my friends, the people who fight the good fight for equality, my social media friends, and especially my dog. She’s adorable.

I’ve realized the importance of putting time into other avenues besides Medium. I’ve enjoyed posting here on Vocal and Ko-Fi. Vocal is cool because you earn bonuses when they feature your article on their Top Stories page. I’ve been featured four times now, with a nice $5 bonus for each article that’s made it on there.

They also paid out bonuses when I signed up and when I posted my 5th article as well as my 10th. They have to approve each writing piece, so they need to be good quality writing and not too controversial or religious. They have standards higher than on Medium, and I’ve done well during the time I’ve used it.

They also offer monthly contests. I’ve just entered my second one, a Mother’s Day-themed contest. It costs $49.99 to sign up for the paid membership on Vocal. This is required to enter their monthly contests. I’ve earned back most of that amount already.

The monthly contests typically offer a $2500 first-place prize, a $1000 second-place prize, and 15 $50 consolation prizes. I’m entering every one of the contests each month. To win any of the three prizes would be incredible. I’ll always try my best, regardless if I win or not.

The last thing I’ll mention about these first six months as a writer is the importance of building your social media following. The more people you have following you and seeing your writing, the most reads you’ll have on Medium and Vocal. That’s more income earned for you.

I was fortunate enough to build a pretty large social media following by most people’s standards these past 15 years. I started on Myspace in 2006, and have mainly been on Facebook since 2009. I’ve even built a fairly decent Instagram following. However, Twitter to me seems to have the most potential.

It’s easier to follow all sorts of other writers on Twitter. I’ve also noticed that Twitter tends to be more lenient as far as content goes. I’ve caught bans on Facebook for certain types of risque jokes and memes I’ve posted. So far after a month on Twitter, this does not seem to be the case.

It also is easier to have certain posts go viral or semi-viral on Twitter. Their algorithm is far more generous and favorable for an interesting or funny post to gain traction. I’ve had two so far in less than a month get around 125,000 views and 90,000 views, respectively.

It’s easier for people to see your links to Medium and Vocal if that many people are checking out your funny or entertaining posts on Twitter. I was sure to put my blog link in my bio and ask people to check into my writing. With over 46,000 profile views on Twitter in May and 361,000 people seeing my tweets, it’s definitely helping drive traffic to my blog.

Plus it’s just a lot of fun. I’ve virtually met so many awesome people and other writers on Twitter in the last month. I already have a handful of favorite people on there. I’ve also been adding as many people on Medium and Vocal as I can daily, to boost the number who follow me back, and more readers for my blogs.

You need to be a good friend, though. I’ve done more reading of other writers’ work than I’ve ever done in my life. If anyone comments on my blogs, I immediately clap for them, thank them in a comment, and then go read two or three of their pieces. It’s all about the total reads we all get, right?

All in all, this six-month journey as a new writer has been fantastic. I take joy daily in the small things: A blog that takes off quickly, or perhaps a day that my blog reads are the most they’ve been in a month or longer. Both are awesome accomplishments.

I love receiving positive, awesome comments about my work from other writers, or when someone donates to support my writing on Ko-Fi. Maybe a tweet going viral and helping me gain more followers, or having an article being featured on Vocal. Learning new tips and techniques about writing by reading other authors’ advice is so helpful. The list goes on and on.

I don’t know exactly where this journey is taking me yet. I know the first destination I’m looking for is owning a blog with many followers. One that is earning a middle four-figure income every month. I’d certainly consider that a success and a game-changer for our family.

I want to build my Vocal and Medium following up to five figures. It’s taken me 6 months to hit 1000 followers. I just accomplished that tonight and am proud of that milestone. I’d like to have 10,000 within my first or second year of being a writer.

A book? Who knows? I don’t have any ideas yet that would warrant me working on a novel. That could change of course. E-Book? How-to? Perhaps. I feel I’m knowledgeable about a few topics and possibly could sell some E-Books. More research would be needed.

For now, I’ll enjoy my daily routines which I have yet to tire of: Coffee first thing in the morning while checking my Vocal and Medium notifications and comments. Responding to those comments and reading a little of those writers’ work. Then working on a blog or poem, maybe a bit of content writing until later morning or early afternoon.

A break for the gym to take care of my health comes next. That’s my thinking time, an hour where I can come up with new ideas for blogs and save notes in between sets and reps, or while jogging on the treadmill.

Back to it for the afternoon shift. More writing, some social media interaction, and posting any new work I do on Twitter, Facebook, Ko-Fi, and Vocal. Then I’ll do some more reading and follow more writers on Medium and Vocal.

I usually will break around 5 pm to make dinner, drink a little wine, sing some songs in the kitchen, and enjoy my family. Perhaps some gaming afterward with my kids, or hanging out with my Bride to watch our shows or NBA games, once she’s finally home from her counseling practice.

Once she’s out for the night around 10 pm, that’s when I do most of my blogging. I’ve been working on this one for about two hours. I need to add a few pics to it and call it a night.

I always post my blogs the next morning. I hope some of you will find this one helpful and enjoyable. I love helping other new writers. I feel as though we’re in similar situations and should view each other as allies, not as the opposition. It was awesome to write this six-month recap of my new writer’s journey.

We should all stop to appreciate the small, daily wins we chalk up and thank the people we’re able to thank. I know that doing this each day will help make our long journeys to success a scenic, enjoyable path. We won’t feel the need to be rushed to get there so quickly if we appreciate each of the many little milestones along the way.