What I learned writing an article a day for a week.

Writing is easy. Just dive in.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
  • Just start writing: I write my thoughts and ideas about some subject as and when I get them. The medium app helps here. I just take out my phone and jot down on it. And it saves as a draft. This am doing right now, lying on my bed. Later, I will organize the drafts into more readable paras and finish them. There are multiple drafts on multiple topics. That means I always have an article at hand to write more, or finish, when I have the time.
  • Write with an audience in mind: I knew this trick already, having learned it from some self-help article before. So I chose my audience and kept them in mind. I imagined myself giving a speech to a group of college students. I feel that’s the right level for my writing and the topics I touch upon. It helped me write neither too simplistically, nor too sophisticated.
  • Publish as quickly as possible: After writing something, I feel I can revise it more, making it better. I think all writers would feel this naturally. But once we achieve a proper structure, and we have concluded the article, it is better to publish it on a platform like Medium. Waiting and changing more only delayed me and added little value.
  • Keep revising the articles: So the first thing I did was jot down my ideas about a topic. Next, I organize them into paras when I have time. At night getting into flow, I polish the article and publish it. But after publishing, especially the next day when I wake up and read, I will find many spelling, grammatical, and style issues. I then revise the published article as and when I feel like.
  • Be agile: All the methods I have followed above are like a concept called Agile development in software engineering. Where a programmer gets an idea, writes a piece of code, publishes it, keeps revising and polishing, keeps debugging until the product is well-finished. So being agile in writing has helped me. I think I now have a beautiful topic to write another article on — “Agile Publishing”.
  • Promote your articles: For my first couple of posts, it thrilled me to see organic traction within Medium. It was one of my motivating factors to publish here. But later, I didn’t see the same amount of organic reach. So I actively promoted my articles on twitter, WhatsApp groups, and Facebook. It helped a lot in reach. And a lead to being published on a popular news site too.
  • Keep it under 5 mins: After I wrote articles of different lengths, by stats and through feedback, I understand people like reading for around 4 minutes or maybe a little more. 10 mins articles may be good once in a while, but I think audience really likes that the writer respects their time. So I plan to write shorter articles from now.

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A blogs a worldview at ablogs.medium.com

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