There were many reasons why I wanted to write.

I was restless, and I gained some release by writing and posting online.

Maybe because I wanted to write articles that were useful to others, to influence, to document my ideas and views, and have it become an archive of my thoughts while letting it be accessible to anyone.

But the main motivation was to fill the yearning I had to create something of my own.

I was thinking about how in this world we have inventors, innovators, and we have writers.

And how their contributions or inventions are patented to their creators.

Then I found out that content creation in the form of writing is an intellectual property of the person who wrote it.

Not just fictional stories, factual exposition or newsletters, but blog post are also considered intellectual property.

Below is an excerpt from one of the sources that’s linked below.

“When you publish a blog post, your content is automatically protected by copyright law the moment it is created. This means that your written work, once published, is legally recognized as your intellectual property.“

I had already gained some satisfaction from posting my written articles on my personal blog and then on Medium for international viewers to read and engage in them.

With this added information on the content of blogs having its own copyright status, it gives an added boost to write and keep my personal blog active to capture and document these articles, journals that keep growing over the years.

And if ever there comes a time when external publications wants my content to be included in their platform or brand, it will need my consent, and intellectual property laws would apply.

That my personal content is protected.

That’s why I post a varied number of topics, be it from self-help, parenting, personal finance, work, and many about life and my perspectives on the seasons that we’re in.

I had previously avoided putting myself in a niche because I didn’t want to be boxed in to write on certain topics only, and I still don’t.

I may not be able to pen a best-selling novel or a popular self-help book, nor write a detailed exposé on the historical town I live in now.

But I write what I know and what can help others.

So I hope this post can encourage you to write too, be it about your life, your experiences and interests, shedding light on some personal topics, or maybe even short stories.

And have a blog to link it back to you, as your own intellectual property.

I have been procrastinating in my writing and I’ve found a simple tip to churn out content in short periods.

This past year I have significantly slowed down in my writing, and I have been finding it hard to complete a written article. It was mostly due to work, and partly due to other distractions around me.

It may start with me drafting out an idea, writing a few key phrases down, and then leaving it at that for a week or more.

Some drafts get completed into published articles, but many stay only as drafts.

It’s clear to me now that intentions alone are not enough to keep my weekly writing in check. We all need a bit of help to get our writing out when the seasons in our lives change, like how mine did.

Earlier on when I started writing during the pandemic, I wrote at least once a week, then 2-3 times a week when I got better at it.

But now, after over two years of writing, I’ve slowed down significantly.

With less energy, I had to be more picky when I chose what to do with my time.

For me, coming up with ideas for a post was easy, however, the content needed to be drafted out and be made coherent. That was the harder part.

With me having fewer resources and less attention span to sit down for a long writing session, producing a completed article was getting tougher.

So what is this simple tip to avoid procrastination?

Set a time limit to write.

It can be 20 to 30-minute chunks of writing in a day.

Maybe even 10 to 15 minutes a day during these times when you are struggling to settle yourself down to write.

Setting a duration to write helps make it easier to crunch out those words, and knowing after that time limit you are free to move on to do other things.

With this method, portions of the writing will be written and support the completion of your draft.

Proofreading and editing can be done later, be it rephrasing, correcting typos, or removing unnecessary portions.

After the fourth or fifth session of writing, followed by a final review, you will have a completed article.

It’s progress at least.

And that’s how I completed this article.

Be it 11 pm or nearing midnight, I wrote a few more sentences down, and eventually, it was done.

So here is one of my articles, written in 5 to 10-minute chunks over the past few weeks.

Hope this tip helps you out if you still have the drive to keep writing.

Some things have changed for me here on Medium.

I’ve been writing less since last December, and even so, the few stories that I wrote I have not been able to get them published in any publications, which is not something I struggled with before.

Work did become a higher priority lately and also December 2022 was spent with family from afar, those who have not been able to visit since the pandemic started. But still, even with these going on I should have been able to write. Seasons of busyness never stopped me from writing back then when I started blogging.

So two thoughts crossed my mind.

Firstly, these new stories of mine were rambly and long, and although they started with good intentions and a clear idea, the execution was terrible.

After re-reading my recent stories, they felt like I was watching the 4th installment of the Transformers movie with almost 3 hours of run time filled with explosions, and the plot was totally forgotten mid-way through the movie.

Or how an artist’s first few albums were filled with great songs and years later their new record just sounds, mediocre.

Yes, that’s bad.

Secondly, I seemed to have lost some steam for writing.

Previously I could put out something at least twice a week, writing at night after my day draws to an end, late as it gets.

Now I prioritized writing less than I used to, and it has gotten more common for me to write something and then lose the bulk of the writing idea mid-way through it, leaving the content as a draft version and then forgotten as I moved on to other topics.

Basically, I get stuck mid-way while writing, and I couldn’t conclude it well.

Has my writing stopped becoming relevant?

So the question is, how do I get out of this rut and regain my ability and passion to write well?

July 2022.

I wrote 2 to 3 pieces near the beginning of the month and posted those up on Medium and on my personal blog.

Then I stopped.

Not because I didn’t try, I remember the nights after the kids were in bed, I went on my blog to start writing.

And then.. nothing.

I did not feel like writing.

I procrastinated and delayed starting a post. At most I wrote a title and saved that as a draft.

I did other things instead, watched Youtube, watched movies, looked at family photos, and did menial work around the home, while my blog was open in another tab, waiting for me to fill it up with words.

This was not new, in the past on those nights I managed to push myself to write.

But this time I felt the fatigue of writing, so I stopped myself.

Why?

Because writing should not be a chore.

It shouldn’t be something I dreaded doing, and I wanted to keep that part of the allure of writing.

Of course, it would have been great if I could type out an article in 20–30 minutes, which was what I used to do in the past for some posts when I felt particularly inspired.

But this time I was dry.

What about the other reasons?

I went on a holiday, make that two holidays this month. One over the weekend, and another longer one a week later.

As any parent knows, a holiday with young kids is a different level of energy drain.

Back to the office on Monday, and I powered my mind and body just enough to perform at work, get the kids home safe and down for bed, and then run on reserves for everything else.

Including writing.

Then, I fell sick after the holidays, for 3 days I was down.

While I recovered, my husband and my kids fell sick too. 

I tested myself and the kids for Covid, and it came back negative. Thankfully, no second round for us.

Anyhow, all five of us went down one after another.

Darn you seasonal influenza.

As I write this at 1 am at night, two out of three of my kids are still with fever, medicated of course before bed, tears and wails all included before I left their sleeping bodies in the darkness of their room.

So there. My slowest month.

Do I feel bad about it?

Not really, but the word I feel would be more of discouraged.

Discouraged at the slow progress I have on Medium in general, versus the work that I throw into it.

But that’s just me complaining.

I hope you had a better month than me, and stick to your writing goals.

Maybe I could be motivated by you instead.

For now, I’m flat, mentally.

The thing is, I have a problem with getting readers. At this point, I have published 90 stories here on Medium.

At the heart of my writing, I wish to influence the small audience I have towards topics that matter and to hopefully make a small difference if possible.

What I mean is I write intentionally about topics close to my heart such as parenting, mental health, sustainable environment, social issues, and perspectives on life. Some of these topics can come off as pretty serious and they may not be a casual read.

The problem is readers do not immediately gravitate to these topics, as an effect my audience does not grow significantly, and I do not write frequently enough to churn out top stories one after another.

Frankly, I acknowledge too that there are much better writers on this platform than me.

I also wrote about this a while back about writing with intentionality.

However, I did think of a strategy lately, which I call the Katy Perry method.

To draw an initial viewership for my stories, I can write popular, sensational topics and put up a clickbait title.

For an example, I would make reference to what Katy Perry did when she released her first song entitled ‘I Kissed A Girl’ way back when she just came onto the music scene.

I mean, with a title like this obviously, this song will get attention, throw in some skin and have a I mean, with a title like this obviously, this song will get attention. Throw in some skin and have a pretty face, and you have an immediate audience. Later on, she introduced her listeners to better music which showed off her songwriting skills.

Well, I can’t do that with writing, and I do not wish to draw audiences in with writing trending topics and hope they stay on when they read the other more serious themes in my writing.

At this point, I sound like I am ranting.

How did it go for you and how long did you have to write before you considered your writing a success?

Also, kudos to those who managed to grow their base of readers fast, you have managed to produce writing that attracted the masses and it’s good to see some of you have your hard work pay off.

It just hasn’t happened to me, yet.

Is it only to improve a skill or make money, which is not wrong and are common reasons, or are there other reasons for your writing?

I had another goal, which was to write to make a better world, a better community. As naive as it may sound, it still holds true to me.

This was one of my underlying motivations to start writing in the first place. This, and that I wanted to see if I could write.

My audience is small, the reach is not far, at least for now. But it still matters, to me at least.

I live in a pretty comfortable world, I have a supportive family (mostly) and an education, a stable job, a loving husband, and healthy children.

There’s nothing major to complain about. There are, of course, relationships to work on, and the stresses of caring for young children and my day-to-day work.

But, as a whole, it’s almost rosy, except for the occasional blues that hit me on some evenings, usually when I’m off from work on a weekend, and unoccupied.

I recognize that and am cautious for my own sake, putting up my own guard rails for managing my mental health.

But there is a lot that I am not happy with outside of my home, and I feel it, the dissatisfaction, a speck of dust in my contact lens, an irritant on my skin. You notice it when you are quiet, when you are alone, it becomes louder, more obvious, most of the time you can drown it out with ‘activities’, or focus back on your day-to-day problems.

That is why I write intentionally, most of them at least.

I share my thoughts with the aim of helping, or improving a situation, to educate, to share different perspectives and opinions, to ask questions, and to invoke questions from readers, exploring societal themes, and hopefully to make empathy more commonplace.

I read a story to my kids once, it was Cinderella, at least another author’s interpretation of it, it wasn’t exactly Walt Disney’s version that I grew up with. It had a line, that Cinderella’s mother used to say before she passed away, it goes like this.

“Just because it is, doesn’t mean it should be”

What she meant was that just because something was the way it was in society, or at home, doesn’t mean it’s right, or that it can’t be changed.

This author had an additional take on the story, and she passed it on subliminally in her version of this classic.

Other times I write to release my emotions, as a form of self-expression like now, or share stories from my personal life, some of which are more light-hearted, while others can be a bit heavier to take on.

What topics do I tend to write about?

Parenting and motherhood, mental health, child development, personal growth and empowerment, sustainable environment, materialism, personal finances, work, relationships, societal problems, and writing in itself.

The usual hot topics that people gravitate to. I’m kidding. These are not always popular topics, but it’s what I want to write about.

I’ll end with this.

If you have yet to do this check on yourself, maybe you can ask yourself now, what is the intentionality of your writing?

Be it writing music, blogging in your personal space, or writing for for a weekly column of a publication.

It’s a good place to start, with intention, that is.

Choosing to write out my thoughts and feelings and then displaying them for others to see was not an easy step to take for an introvert like myself. But that is basically what I am doing when I am blogging on my personal space or publishing my stories on Medium. There will always be the possibility that others do not agree with my written views and it may even offend some people.

This is a given.

Not to mention there will be those who will make known their disagreements out loud and occasionally, maybe even be outright condescending in their feedback to my post. Furthermore, their comments are openly displayed for the world to see.

Basically, I am opening myself up to be openly criticized over the internet.

It may come from my own social circle but more specifically it will be from strangers over the internet. It can be about general topics where I share my opinions in a written piece, and it may not be received well by some readers. Then there is the anomaly of who my audiences are, as I find some readers are less tactful in their feedback.

How am I taking it?

Not good actually.

This is coming from someone who struggles with self-esteem issues in the past and who is quick to doubt her capabilities at the hint of disapproval.

In another post, I wrote about how I learned to let go of relying upon others’ approvals and opinions of myself, and though what is written there still holds true, it is not always an immediate response my mind takes when receiving negative feedback.

I question myself from their point of view and though I may not fully agree with their views, and sometimes I cannot understand them, it still raises feelings of self-doubt.

It’s akin to making fun of a girl’s facial features when she has suffered body-dysmorphia issues in her past or telling someone who has an eating disorder that they looked a little chubbier today, words like these will trigger them. Although I would not say my level of despair at reading those negative comments is the same as these examples that I mentioned here, their words still sting me and it tends to hover in my mind for quite a while, beating me down.

Till I am able to pull myself up again after I have processed my thoughts logically.

I really could be wrong, and they may be right, and I would have to be able to own up to that.

Does it make me less brave and less keen to write my opinions on a topic?

Yes, it does, unfortunately.

Will I stop writing my views out here for the whole darn world to read, and click publish, and hope that firstly, someone reads it and secondly, they have the decency to not trash my writing openly?

Yes, I will still choose to write.

So while I nurse my pride a little bit more and grow another thin layer of protection over my writer’s shell, I am writing this to make sense of how best to react to these situations and how to manage my own feelings over them.

I am also reminded of how my own pride is also my downfall, even for someone who struggled with self-esteem issues in the past, unfortunately.

So, how do you take criticism?

Talk about eating my humble pie, and it doesn’t taste very nice.

My last few articles have been rejected from publications on Medium lately and although this was not new to me, it was new that the rejections came from different publications and occurred around the same time. Even after making revisions to the piece, it was still rejected or currently still pending a second review.

So, were they right to reject my writing?

The short answer is, yes.

I was impatient to get more writing out in a slow month for me and I wrote a few stories out without further editing and made mistakes in both the writing and my publication submission strategy.

What mistakes?

1. Submitting Stories That Are Not A Match For The Publication
Yes, an amateur mistake, and it was made known to me clearly by the editors for those publications, that my stories were not a fit for their publication’s theme. Hence I was rejected for my third story submission to them. Maybe the fourth attempt will be it, right? Here’s to hoping.

2. Lengthy And Wordy Stories
Some of my rejected stories were due to my writing being too unnecessarily lengthy and long-winded. I knew this weakness in my writing from my earlier days where I would go on and on without a full stop and included nonrelevant information into the said story, which could have been omitted altogether. What a bore to read.

3. Lack Of Review And Editing
Another amateur writing mistake. I had a read through my rejected pieces and took note of what the editors feedback in their notes to me. It had grammatical errors and the mistake of being overly long-winded as mentioned in point number 2 above. If I had taken the time to re-read and edit through my article, and used my free Grammarly app I would have had a much higher chance of getting my stories accepted into their publications.

Apart from that, let’s not forget that it hurts a little bit to get these rejections in a row, but I can fully understand where the editors were coming from, and they were not being mean but purely objective in only accepting what they wanted, and only stories that make the cut for their publications.

At least I learned my lesson, and here’s to better writing in the future.

With the ending of this article, I am now just about finished healing from my writing bruises and will soon proceed to take the band-aid off.

Trying to multitask while exercising, I popped in my wireless earphones and listened to a Youtube video from productivity expert Ali Abdaal on a topic about starting a Youtube channel versus starting writing, and the advice given for beginners at both content creation platforms, either on Youtube or at online writing was to start producing more content versus worrying about the quality of each content.

This basically means, quantity trumps quality at the initial stage of writing or video creation.

Another way of phrasing this term was to ‘Get Going then Get Good’ which means to start creating and consistently publishing new content at the early stages. Then as you progress on, added with the experience from releasing an increased amount of written content, you then eventually get better at content creation and start scaling up on the quality of your work.

Although I had heard of this advice when I initially started writing last year, I’ve never heard it phrased in such a simple way before and it made me re-emphasize to myself that I should continue to write and publish consistently, even when I was afraid of releasing a written piece that may not get many views or may not be a popular topic, or felt that it was imperfect. 

On some days, this fear prevents me from even starting to write a new piece. Thankfully, I am usually able to overcome this after a few days as the itch to write something new creeps up on me every now and then, then I can’t resist but to ‘pen it’ down.

So here’s a short one to encourage new writers to keep writing, and cheers to a fruitful 2022.

Before going into more detail about writing relatable content, I want to first mention that writing on Medium has exposed me to way wider audiences compared to when I wrote only on my blog and published it to readers within my social circle. In a wider ocean, I learned that certain topics that worked and got engagement among my peers in social media such as Facebook and Instagram may not have the same level of engagement among Medium readers who are more diverse, coming from different countries, nationalities, age groups, and social classes.

This, in my opinion, is a good thing as growth is crucial for me as a writer.

Learning what topics worked for different audiences makes me put on different hats and look at topics from many different angles, inadvertently making me more empathetic and understanding of others’ opinions who may come from a wide spectrum of audiences.

Coming back to the main topic of this article, I want to highlight that being relatable in your writing, be it the topic or the style of writing is one reason your article gets more reads, attention, and engagement from your audiences.

We read others’ writing for many reasons, on one hand, we read to be educated or enlightened, to learn more about skill or a new perspective, sometimes from expert views and opinions on a topic.

But we also read topics and writing that leave an impression on you, be it emotionally or psychologically. We read writing with content that we can empatize with, those that you tend to think about even days after you’ve read it, writing that you find relatable and hits closer to home.

This type of writing will resonate with many of your audiences.

That is also why when writers show their vulnerability in their writing it becomes a more attractive piece for me as I get a sense of how the writer thinks and feels about a specific situation or topic in the content. This makes the writing appear more genuine and authentic, versus just facts being spewed out on paper and can seem distant and cold.

Admitting your weakness and fears in your personal life, be it about parenting, mental health, feelings of inadequacy or just plain trying to make it work on Medium in your writing are stories people can relate to.

We do not need to be perfect for others to want to follow or read our content, but we can be helpful by expressing honesty in our thoughts and on personal topics, and hopefully, some readers can gain some value from it. These will be a good addition on top of the stories of your more structured content, which in my case are about environmental sustainability and recycling, personal finance, and productivity. But even these ‘structured’ topics can be written from a personal perspective which can make it more engaging.

So feel free to write about your struggles, mistakes, and what you have learned while journeying through your experiences in life. Pick and write about content that is both relatable and beneficial to your readers.