Reflections on my month of writing
Or how I started writing again
November 30th means #NaBloPoMo is officially over, so now it’s time to reflect on how this month went.
I wrote 25 blog posts in total — I took weekends off mostly, but sometimes was so inspired that I wrote two blog posts in one day.
Medium tells me I had 1,191 views and the most popular posts were:
- Why we should enable and empower everyone to be designers and researchers
- My trust in government series
- Maybe having kids was good for my career?
- We need to re-think word of mouth culture in government
What went well
- Overall, it was a lot easier than I thought. I guess my writing skills honed over years of producing content quickly have stuck with me.
- I’ve had topics on my mind that I’ve been meaning to write about for years, and this month of writing gave me an excuse to finally get on with it.
- I put my name to opinions and ideas I haven’t felt comfortable saying out loud. It felt bold and empowering to say these things out loud.
- A few people reached out, shared my posts and praised things that I had written (especially my word of mouth post.) So I think they resonated with folks.
- In January 2022, I made a goal of writing six blog posts this year. This allowed me to surpass that by, like, a lot.
What I struggled with
- In retrospect I worry that I wrote too many opinion pieces. This was intentional — I needed to be quick with my writing and it was much quicker to draw on my own experiences than research topics at length.
- Writing takes my focus from listening to telling. So I’m looking forward to shutting up for a bit and absorbing what others are saying.
- It distracted me from some aspects of my work. I’m lucky that my employer gives me space for things like this but I worry I’ve let people down and not been as present as I usually am.
- I was hoping these topics would spark some debate or questions or conversation or constructive feedback. But aside from a bit of lovely praise and a few helpful comments (thanks Heather!), I mostly had crickets.
Other reflections
- Here’s something that surprised me: The topics that got the most traction were not the big topics that I had been thinking about for years; They were the shorter topics that came up organically through conversations. My trust in government and word of mouth posts are examples of topics that came up this way.
- Writing is thinking. Writing about the topics in my head really helped me cut the clutter in my thought process and think more clearly about what my opinions were on those things.
- There is power in saying things out loud, for the world to see. Writing openly has made me feel more confident and clear on what I care about.
My month of blogging may be over but I feel energized to keep sharing. So perhaps this is the sequel to my first blog post — Maybe this is the first chapter of how I started writing again.
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