I recently wrote an article that bored me silly.
It’s not that the article was dry. It was, in my opinion, well-written and informative, and it did what any informative article should do: it informed my audience (and me, for that matter; I had many questions about the topic at hand before I researched it). It was interesting in all possible ways, in so far as an informative article can be.
But it didn’t fill my soul; it didn’t come from the soul. It was just words, and while they were helpful, I can’t help but question how much those words will resonate with people. Because here’s the thing: writing that flows from the heart is almost always more likely to touch the hearts of those who read it, and when you touch a person’s heart?
You hook them. As a writer, the work that flows from a place of deep understanding and interest is your best lure. It’s not a catchy headline (although, let’s be honest, that helps), and it’s not flashy images, either. It’s not perfect prose or clever analogies.
It’s about writing about what drives you and what motivates you; it’s about what moves you. It’s about writing what you know and—this is important—what you love.
And really, how can you expect readers to love your writing when you don’t even love it yourself?
The “write what you know” cliche might actually work
Some of the best writing I’ve ever read wasn’t written by professional writers.
You know when you were like, eleven years old, and you had a diary with a little plastic lock and a key you wore around your neck on a string? Remember the precious secrets you shared within those pages? The innermost thoughts and feelings of a preteen are so much more interesting than more than half of the non-fiction writing I read these days.
Testimonies about a person’s life and stories about a time or journey that changed them are fascinating. As an example, I love when my church holds baptisms. The testimonies of people who had spent their entire lives stumbling along wayward pathways rife with pain and critical errors are incredible, particularly after they’d found their way to the good people of the church who helped them out of their self-made misery.
Real life is full of crazy tales and the people who tell them. It’s full of beauty and tragedy and intrigue. Some of the best storytellers I’ve ever come across could write compelling bestsellers that would knock even the most experienced writers off the shelves.
Writing what we know might just be our secret weapon.
Your lived experience is fascinating (and valid)
When I was pregnant with my first child, I was terrified of labour.
The baby growing inside of me had become a known sensation. Her timely kicks and rolls from within were understood by then; I’d experienced them for months. But birth?
That I had never done.
New things are scary, especially when they involve safely delivering new life, and I found solace in the stories of others. TikTok wasn’t a thing yet, and vlogging was something that only emo teens tended to partake in, but there were countless blogs from other expectant mothers.
Most blogs I read were penned by women who’d already had their babies, and that was good because what my mind needed was their birth stories. Detailed descriptions of how everything almost always didn’t go according to their carefully crafted and laminated birth plans, and how none of it mattered because what they felt when they finally held their babies for the first time was almost ethereal, were accounts that gave me life when I was too terrified to speak. When I was terrified of the inevitable.
Your stories and lived experiences might just be fascinating and downright lifegiving to someone else. Tell your story—it doesn’t have to be perfect. Imperfect stories are authentic and there’s nothing better than an authentic tale.
With a bit of training and experience, anyone can write a how-to piece, but explaining what it feels like to have your child throw their pudgy arms around you for the first time? That’s not something that can be taught.
Writers who try to be “writerly”
It’s so easy for writers to get caught up in maintaining their “professional writer” status.
There are just so many of us out here—all of us trying to make our way in a saturated market, all of us trying to stay relevant, all of us trying to keep our craft and processes so very “writerly.”
Trying to maintain this kind of thinking is bound to lead to burnout. How many times have I stumbled across a writer I enjoyed only to find that they stopped writing years ago? How many amazing storytellers got lost among the eccentricities of the writing world?
Popular blogger-turned-dad-turned-author Tim Urban was known for his lengthy, deep blog posts that would take eight million years to read but changed something in you each and every time you got through one. He wrote semi-regularly for a few years and suddenly dropped off the map.
He outlines in a return blog post some of what had happened to him over his six-year absence, and a lot of it had to do with the monstrousness of the projects he was undertaking throughout that hiatus. The projects and posts and books-in-progress kept growing and creating more and more anxiety within Tim, and soon they became stifling.
They became insurmountable.
We’re all susceptible to this tragedy, and you know who suffers? Your potential readers. And probably even you—as the late, great Maya Angelou is famous for saying:
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
So don’t get caught up in all the nonsensical stuff and, for the love of all that is holy, tell your stories.
There’s only one You
At the end of the day, there’s only one person who can do your stories any justice.
You.
While I joked at the start of this story about my boring-ass article, I’m aware that it was still a helpful little how-to for other writers everywhere, and honestly, it wasn’t boring in the conventional sense. I’m giving myself a hard time.
But like I said, I was bored silly writing the thing. Each little subheading made me groan and go back to check my article length, bemoaning the too-low wordcount and trying to make sure I gathered enough helpful information and advice for my readers. Each time I edited it, I had to go back and redo heaps of my work—a clear indication of my fogginess at the time of writing.
The whole time I was focused on another, more interesting narrative in my brain, and you can bet your behind that I’ll be writing about that, too. However, the fact that my own thoughts were diverting me from what I was writing about was a red flag.
I even missed last week’s newsletter because I was too focused on trying to get one stupid article finished, and I didn’t even really enjoy a moment of it, except perhaps for watching it whoosh away from my inbox after I’d finally finished it.
The takeaway here is this: if you aren’t writing what you love, there’s a very good chance that your apathy will bleed through to your finished product, too. People are surprisingly intuitive, especially when it comes to the creative process, and it’s generally obvious when someone is just checking off all the boxes rather than letting their passion do the driving.
Sure, your work might get read if you’re providing a helpful answer to a probing question, but they’re not likely to come back for more.
Let your passion take the lead, and the next time you find yourself writing in your coveted, private little diary, try tossing the key. Why not show the world the majesty of what lives in your head?
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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