The Ultimate Writing Starter Kit For People with Full Time Jobs
#10 Don’t stress if it’s good or not. People really don’t care
First of all, anyone can write online and find success.
A guy I met at a networking event asked if we could meet for coffee. He wanted to talk about writing. I was over the moon! Does someone want writing advice from moi? I thought he’d come with a boatload of questions. He only asked one.
How the heck do you do it, man?!
He meant, how do I write online with a full-time job?
Here’s what I told him.
1.) Be you before the light arrives.
I get it. Who has the time to write? I didn’t when I started.
Everything changed when I copied Toni Morrison’s writing routine. By the way, she also wrote her first few novels while keeping a full-time job. What did she do? She wrote before sunrise. Before all the distractions. Before she had to clock into her day job. Before her kids woke up.
“Being before the light arrives” is how she describes it.
I recommend 5 am in the morning, but I know many writers that get it done late at night.
2.) Read, read, read. Then keep reading.
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
- Stephen King
It’s impossible to be any good at writing without reading.
It means becoming a good consumer before becoming a good producer. It’s my avenue for generating ideas and welding together two disparate thoughts to create something new. It’s feeding my interests and then digging a little deeper.
If you sign up to be a great writer, you’re also signing up to be a great reader.
3.) Learn some fundamentals.
You’re almost ready to start, I promise.
Next, learn the basics of writing online. Like how to write engaging headlines, copywriting basics, and paragraph structure. It’s not rocket science, and I bet most people can learn it in a day.
It’s not talent. It just takes a little bit of time and study.
Here’s where I learned the basics.
4.) Just get started
Don’t spend weeks or even days thinking about what you’re going to write about.
Ryan Holiday’s associate Billy Oppenheimer recently tweeted a story about this. He told Ryan he wanted to start a newsletter but couldn’t decide what to write about. “Just start,” Ryan told him. “You’re thinking about the 9th inning when you should focus on the first pitch.”
If that isn’t the greatest piece of entrepreneurial advice, I’m not sure what is.
5.) Pick your platform
You’ve got to post your work somewhere.
The online writers who do this for a living will post on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack, TikTok, and YouTube. Personally, I don’t have the time, and working the algorithm on all of those is like trying to tuck an octopus into bed – you’re never going to get it right.
Start with one platform. I recommend Substack.
6.) Write one 300-word article.
There are no rules on article length.
Seth Godin is one of the most successful bloggers of all time. His email newsletters are around 300 words. Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic is a few paragraphs reflecting on a line for Stoicisms. Tom Kuegler swears on writing 300 words so he can get to the call to action faster.
You can knock out 300 words, right?
7.) Don’t stress over originality.
It didn’t click for me until I read William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.
In the book, he talks about his students who refused to write about their travel experiences because they deemed it “unoriginal.” “Never be afraid to write about a place that you think has had every last word written about it,” he says. “It’s not your place until you write about it.” He means that everyone has written blogs Disneyland or self-improvement. But this is the first time anyone has heard your perspective.
So what is your perspective? let’s hear it.
8.) Practice, practice, practice
New skills need deliberate practice, or else you’re wasting your time.
According to the author of Grit, Angela Duckworth, deliberate practice is a stretch goal. It’s “100% focus on attaining that goal, getting feedback, and then reflecting on that feedback and refining one’s practice as needed.”
Writing is a skill just like knitting or snowboarding. With deliberate practice and time, you will get better.
9.) Give yourself a deadline
You’re more likely to write when you give yourself a deadline. Sounds traditional, but it’s also true.
My newsletter is founded on the principle that one article will come out each Friday at 7:30 am – without fail. At first, my readers were just friends, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. Now I have all sorts of readers who open up these emails – some even pay! I definitely don’t want to let them down.
Nothing gets you going like social pressure, so create some for yourself.
10.) Don’t stress if it’s good or not. People really don’t care 😊
I’m hoping this will inspire you.
Most people never start writing because they're afraid of what their friends will think. The truth is, no one thinks about you that much. They aren’t now. They weren’t before. They won't when you start writing. Post something and you will see what I mean.
The truth is your friends are mostly thinking about themselves.
11.) This is the key to writing online.
The key to writing online is to actually write online.
Blogger Nicolas Cole compares writing online to how many famous musicians started their careers “practicing in public.” A pleasant way of saying they sang in subway stations and outside of Starbucks shops.
“Ed Sheeran played in Subways for years before being signed by a record label. Taylor Swift played at rotary clubs and county fairs before becoming one of the biggest artists in the world.”
The internet is your subway station. It’s your rotary club.
· You will learn about what you like to write.
· You will learn about what the audience likes to read.
· You will discover your writing voice.
The internet is a powerful feedback loop. A mentor acting as a 24/7 marketplace. That’s why above all, you have to start.