This Secret Has Helped Me In Writing Every Day, and Some More. Here Is How You Can Too.
Ssshhhhh…
Do you struggle with writing every day? Are you running out of things to write about? Writing is not a straight-forward craft like many professions. It majorly relies on the imagination of the writer, and as it is imagination is not always an easy thing to capture either on a paper or a screen. I started writing at the age of eight years when we began writing essays in our English classes. Back then, writing a story of five hundred words and more on the go was not a task at all. We would be given a topic to write about, and since you only had forty minutes or less to deliver, the only struggle would be to fit your whole novel onto the provided paper which was never enough.
Later on in high school, I progressed to write on journals. Daily I would pen down my thoughts, experiences and list of things to do. Not a single day would pass without me writing something such that my habit was well known by my classmates and teachers. I would write about the books that I read, what a teacher or a speaker had said, an observation I had made in the school, verses from the Bible and even sometimes, what I thought about the food we ate. Writer’s block was foreign to me as things to write about were endless.
Fast forward, I came onto the real world and the ease to which I had grown accustomed to while writing slowly slipped away. I do not know if it was the hustle of trying to balance the added responsibilities of adulthood or the need to establish myself as a writer, the bottom line is that writing was becoming more of a chore than it was as a hobby and frustrating the hell out of me. I would figure out a grand idea I would want to talk about, start off writing and midway, gave up because it was not making sense anymore. As a result, I have tens of unfinished drafts on my laptop and it pains to remember how much time I wasted creating them yet nothing tangible ever came forth.
Writer’s block is real. If you are reading this, I can only assume that more than once you have come face to face with this monster. To any person trying to build a successful career out of writing, it is the worst possible thing that can happen. Otherwise, how can you claim to be a writer if you do not write or at least have something to show for it?
To sustain a successful writing career, creativity is key. However as I mentioned earlier, good ideas kept eluding me and the few ones I got, I would sabotage them by overthinking through them in my thirst for a perfect masterpiece. Eventually, I stopped writing altogether. However, in my daily readings on Medium, I recently I came across an article that unlocked a whole new world of creativity that I never thought existed. And with it came the secret that not only revived my already dead habit, but also gave me the key to build on it every single day until now!
Quora! You did not see this coming, did you? Yes, I said it. The secret I discovered on that day that has helped me to write everyday was Quora. You see, Quora receives thousands upon thousands of questions daily on all possible topics under the sun. Whilst it is sometimes difficult to come up with ideas on your own, Quora presents you with an entire universe with all the inspiration you would ever probably need. Nicolas Cole, the author of the article that I read, said that he initially struggled to write until he committed himself to answering one question on Quora every day for a year. This practice saw him slowly get comfortable into writing daily, and with an endless buffet of ideas to choose from, how could he not?
As a dying writer who was desperately ready to take up whatever straw to hold onto, I had found the cure! I immediately installed Quora on my phone and set to work. At first, it was so overwhelming to see all the questions that I could answer or use as an inspiration that I almost allowed my overthinking to rule again. To avoid being sucked in by the overload of excitement I was experiencing, I challenged myself to tackle at least one question every day. For how long, I cannot say.
I took three days before I could start writing, just so I could figure out how the platform works. I needed to know how to filter out what areas were of interest to me and ignore the ones that would only serve to clutter my plate, what kind of responses are usually provided to the questions and what it takes to stand out as a contributor. Moreover, it was necessary to take the three days to let the over excitement that ensued to cool off and wrap my head around how I would grow as a writer from this goldmine.
I wrote my first answer of slightly over five hundred words in less than ninety minutes. To me, this was quite a victory because compared to the other times, I would take three hours or more to complete an article of similar length. Four days in, I answered an extra question out of my usual quota and by the eighth day, I was writing three articles a day. Quora became a game changer!
It is not yet a month since I began, but the benefits that I am reaping off the platform are both evident and ovation-worthy. I no longer run out of ideas to spin off nor do I overthink what does not need to be overthought. In addition, I am settling into the routine of writing something every day and for one who is looking to get a footing in the world of writing, it is quite some progress.
So, do you still wish you could write everyday but are unable to because you have run out dry of things to write about? Does your imagination betray you halfway through a piece that could have turned out great with some new inspiration? Are you wondering how some writers manage to write and publish every single day? If yes, try out Quora today!
