NOTE: We don't inhabit a fragmented reality. Nothing around us can be isolated from the catastrophic effects of the pandemic we're witnessing. All further posts on this blog will carry this caveat until there is some reasonable accountability established and substantial actions taken against the state's criminal abdication of responsibility. To understand if the government's handling of covid crisis can be called a 'crime against humanity' see here.
I was talking to a dear friend the other day about writing. He had started writing a blog sometime back, but had stopped now. When I asked him about this, he told me that the main reason he stopped was because the blog didn't have scale i.e. not many people read it. His mantra was 'Build a brand first and then start writing to achieve scale'. There are a couple of things to be understood here.
First, writing is not a monolith in terms of what it means to writers themselves. Between individuals who write to achieve scale and individuals who write to just write irrespective of scale - neither is better than the other in terms of how they approach writing. Writing is a personal decision and thus has different cost and benefits for every individual.
Second, scale is really important in writing. As an author of a blog that is yet to cross net 1000 views, I can attest to the fact that numbers do matter. Numbers reflect how many people are interested in reading what you write, and their engagement often propels new lines of thinking and much needed new dimensions. And arguably the purpose of writing a blog is to achieve scale, for if you wanted to write for yourself you could just as well write a private journal. One writes a blog so that other people can read it. Scale is at the core of this activity. People who say that they write only for themselves and don't care about numbers are either lying or are on their path to enlightenment. Much likely it is the former.
Third, achieving scale in your writing after you have built a brand is comparatively easier than building a brand through writing. My friend (rightly) argued that when you build a brand (by building a brand I loosely mean the fact that one has created an audience for oneself by virtue of your professional experience and competence) you can essentially transport scale to your writing, rather than have to start from scratch. The idea is that if a person who I really admire, or at least like to listen to, or take a liking to announces that they are starting a blog - I would be interested to read it. The reason I'll read their blog is because I know of this person from outside this blog. Thus, when you have built a brand - it is easier to achieve scale and engagement. As humans we rely on signaling to make decisions such as what to read (heuristics). Thus one's credentials and background plays a very important role in what people think about your writing and how they want to engage with it. As much as this can be classified as unfair - we're likely to read a blog by someone from Oxford than say a local state university. (My friend said that he'd much rather first build credibility through his achievements and credentials and then write. I completely agree with this approach). I am unaware about at what point in their life the famous bloggers such as Naval, Seth Godin, David Perell, Ashish Kulkarni, Paul Graham, Kevin Simler, Ajay Shah etc. started to write. Was it always or only after they achieved considerable success? It would be really interesting to ask everyone on this non exhaustive list about their approach to writing.
So what to do?
This conversation did really get me thinking about why I write the blog myself. I don't write only for myself and I want other people to read what I write. Numbers are not the only reason why I write of course, but when a post does well it does sure feel good. My own motivation is two fold. First the more you write, the better you get at it and I'd very much like to become a better writer. Second, (and Jordan Peterson has discussed about this extensively) writing forces you to think and articulate clearly. Writing almost always makes us ask new questions, and think widely and differently. An advice I give myself (one that I'm yet to follow but know for sure that it works) is that if you want to know about something you have no idea about, write an article on it.
So as much as I see merit in my friend's argument (who I wish builds his brand quickly so that I can read his writings) - I actively chose to keep writing rather than build my brand first. Also, it is kind of a slippery slope. What exactly does building a brand mean and when do you achieve it? How many twitter followers are enough to convince you to write? 500 or 50K? How many likes on your LinkedIN posts or congratulations on your job updates before you start writing? It's a slippery slope because you can always aim for more numbers, and the larger the better for achieving scale for your blog. When does one start? Even if one doesn't fall into this slippery slope and fixes a specific target of when they want to start writing (example - when I get 1k twitter followers), there is no knowing when such a target will be achieved. Only writing post this milestone means that you've lost the time before this which you could have used to write more often and better your writing for if you're a normal human like me, the only way you'll become better at writing is by writing more often.
But I also don't want to give this advice without caveats or qualifications. Decide the cost and benefit of writing yourself and if the costs outweigh the benefits, have no second thoughts about not writing. I have seen countless smart people that do not write anything. Writing isn't an indicator of smartness or intelligence. All of the people who write are not smart, but a lot of smart people write. It's only one form of self expression, in no way definitive. So, as opposed to many people who actively urge people to write and write more often I'd like to ask you to chill. Consider writing every once in a while, but if you're not up to it, don't do it. The heavens won't fall.
Photo only for thumbnail purposes.
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