Last October, I decided to try an experiment, based on the book Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. I decided to try writing something every day for 100 days. I didn’t even make it a month. But, that’s the point of a tiny experiment. In just the process of trying, I learned a great deal..
The first is that I like ot write long, in-depth articles that pick apart, examine and explore very complex topics. Articles that usually run about 2,500 - 3.500 words. The kinds of articles that most writers will spend six months or longer writing. In fact, that’s why I generally refer to them as “articles” rather than a blog or post.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s also not something I can do every day. Even if I could, however, the other problem is that it takes a fair amount of time to read a 2.500 - 3.500 word article, which is asking a lot of most readers. So, I either have to write shorter posts or resign myself to only publishing a post every six months or so. I think it’s safe to say it’s hard to build a readership by only putting out one article every six months.
Another thing I learned is that when it comes to writing, putting out something every day is challenging, but that may also only be because I was trying to write too much each day. I think that for this next round, I want to try and put something out three times a week, so I’m thinking Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Depending on how things go, I might be able to ramp up to daily posts, if I keep them shorter.
I’m calling this round of the experiment “500 Words” and the goal is to only write around 500 words on a given topic. This means that sometimes, I may not be able to explore a topic as in-depth as I would like, and sometimes, my thoughts may seem incomplete. I will likely also not spend as much time polishing and editing as I would like. The truth is, however, that this is likely going to be a valuable exercise for me, because I definitely believe I err on the side of over-explaining.
This is part and parcel of the ever-present imposter syndrome that so many women (in particular) seem to struggle with. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling like I have to over-explain things or I will not be understood or that every time I write about something, I have to over-explain it in order to prove that my arguments or thoughts have merit or that I know what i am talking about.
So, this is about learning to just put my thoughts out into the world, and trust that they have value, without a lot of polishing, editing and over-explaining.
The other thing I have been struggling with for a few years now is finding my niche. This involves asking and answering two key questions:
What is the thing that I can write about every day or several days a week for days, weeks, months or years.
What do I feel like there is a genuine and legitimate need for right now?
As some of you may have seen, I have gone back and forth around topics like religious deconstruction, general decuonstruction and what I like to call “whole-istic” health. This involves recognizing that human beings are 4-elemental: mind, heart, both and soul, and almost all of our most serious health issues stem from and/ or affect all four areas. But, after a lot of struggling and going back and forth, I am going all the way back to the beginning. From the very start, my passion was for empowering female leaders. After literally five full years of exploring other avenues and potential topics, I am going right back to where I started.
Some of the blogs/ posts/ topics may not seem to have much to do with leadership, but that is largely because our ideas of leadership generally involve only a very small number of people in a very narrow range of circumstances. i believe instead in something I call “lifestyle leadership”, where being a leader is not a position you fulfill, but a framework you build that affects every decision you make in life.
Obviously, I will be writing a lot more about that and explaining more about what that means in the near future. Until then, a few other items of note are that I am currently rebuilding my website (I let my hosting lapse because I was spending too much time rebuilding my website every time I changed directions), and I am currently in the process of planning a leadership retreat, and possibly an online course or series. So, a lot of great sutff happening, and I hope you will stick around for the ride!
Just foe context, this is now around 820 words, so I’m improving but still have a long way to go!