30 Posts Later: What I Learned From Starting My Blog

I set a goal earlier this summer to publish 30 articles before September 1st.

Once published, this post will be my 30th, and with that, my first extended writing goal has been completed!

I wanted to share what I've learned as a new writer during this process.

Here are the 10 takeaways that I learned from writing these first 30 posts.

1 - This Was Harder Than I Expected, But Not For The Reasons I Would Have Guessed

First of all, I didn't expect writing a blog to be easy.

At first, I thought the consistent practice of writing would be the hard part, maybe I would lose interest or something and I'd break the chain because I would become distracted.

What I didn't realize was how hard it was going to be to develop articles that had purpose.

In other words, when I was writing for myself in my journals and notebooks, I was essentially venting. Once I started to write for other people, I realized that writing without resolution doesn't really help anyone. I had to think more about the message I was delivering.

I wrote every single day, sometimes for hours and sometimes without producing anything that I wanted to share with the world. Those were the more frustrating days, when I would literally be trying to write for the entire day with nothing to show for it, other than articles that I didn't want to publish.

Before I posted the article I had to ask myself, 'Why would anyone care about this?'

If I couldn't answer this question, or if it seemed that the article wrapped around in circles or didn't have a clear direction, I scrapped it.

Writing to communicate a point is much harder than just writing for the sake of writing.

2 - I Had To Adjust My Goals To Prevent Burnout

I had initially set the goal to publish daily. I wanted to build consistency and it seemed like it would be easier to do so if I set a daily publishing goal.

It was binary, I published or I didn't.

After two weeks of this, I was starting to feel really burned out.

My goal was to publish every day, and I felt like I had to deliver a message, rather than rant. This added a level of complexity that I didn't anticipate. I couldn't just publish anything, I wanted it to be good, or at least good enough.

Something had to change.

I was working my ass off trying to make the goal happen, but in the process I wasn't producing work that I was happy with and I was quickly getting frustrated.

I adjusted my goal from publishing every day to publishing every other day. I could always publish more frequently if I wanted to, but this small adjustment meant that I could work through ideas with less time pressure and remain consistent.

Setting a lofty goal was important, but it was also important to adjust that goal so that I could continue, rather than burning out and quitting.

3 - I'm Still Trying To Find My Voice

I still don't totally know what niche I am trying to occupy. All I knew is that I've been wanting to create a blog because it seemed like an interesting creative challenge and it would allow for me to share my experiences.

I remember George Harrison from the Beatles commenting on how he didn't know what an album would be as they were creating it. He said something to the effect that it would only become clear once they had completed recording.

I feel like I can use this idea in my own approach. I don't yet know exactly what my niche will be, but I am writing in the meantime, hoping that writing consistently will help surface my specialties.

I do think that writing with purpose will become easier once my voice is evident, but for now, 'keep going' is the mantra.

The important thing is to just get started.

4 - It Was Better To Have One Primary Source For My Articles

For a good part of this experiment I was posting to three platforms: Substack, Medium, and MrJsn.com (hosted with Ghost.org).

I can start to build SEO recognition by making my posts on MrJsn.com the "canonical link" for the articles. In the meantime, by reposting my stories to Medium, I get immediate reader feedback, which is helpful.

Quick Aside: A canonical link basically tells search engines what the original post's URL is so that it plays better with SEO.

I still think that Medium has been the best user experience, but I also wanted to build something that I could call my own and send people to, where they wouldn't have to pay money to read what I've written. That's what I am using MrJsn.com for now.

I nuked my Substack altogether about a week ago and now only use MrJsn.com and Medium.

Long story short, I think it's better to focus on one, maybe two, platforms in the beginning rather than trying to be everywhere.

5 - I Looked At My Stats, A Lot

Every time I received a new follower or claps on a story, it would give me just enough of a boost to get through the tougher days when it felt really hard.

I should probably try to remind myself to not be so concerned with the numbers though.

It was helpful to see growth, even if it was minimal, in order to feel like what I was doing was landing, at least somewhere with someone. But I had to remind myself that growth might be slow and I need to earn it, not expect it.

Seeing your stats grow can be energizing, but be careful not to let it kill your motivation if you're not getting the results you want right away.

6 - I Need A More Comfortable Chair

I had no idea how much time I would actually be sitting at my computer when I started this experiment. So far I haven't figured out how to write articles quickly, so I have been spending a lot of time sitting and typing away.

Even as I type this, my butt is yelling at me, telling me it doesn't like the chair I am sitting on. My lower back isn't happy with me either.

I may need to get more efficient at writing so that I am not spending so much time on the computer. In the meantime, I may also need to get a more comfortable chair.

Ergonomics matter.

7 - Getting Support From Friends And Family Kept Me Going

At first I wasn't really telling anyone that I was writing a blog. I did tell my wife and adult children I was starting to write and they were immediately supportive, which I'm super grateful for.

However, I didn't want to tell anyone else I was publishing articles because I didn't want to give them the chance to talk me out of it. Ultimately it's up to me whether I continue or not, but I didn't want to hear the negativity in the event that someone didn't get it.

I finally told a friend what I was working on when she asked me to help her develop a web page for her business. I only did so because I didn't want to leave her wondering why I couldn't help.

The result was shocking. She was totally supportive of the idea and even told a bunch of my other friends.

Luckily, they have all been supportive. This helps me feel like I'm on the right track.

My friends and family were surprisingly supportive, but I was very careful with who I've told, avoiding telling people who I thought might not understand.

8 - The Headline And The Subtitle Matter

. . . and it's way harder for me to come up with these than I thought it would be.

I'm going to need some more practice with this.

Sometimes I feel like I've written a really good article, but wasn't able to come up with a strong title and subtitle. I can't help but wonder if they would have done better with more click-friendly titles.

I have noticed that the articles that I was able to come up with catchy titles for, seemed to do better.

I don't want to invest all this time into writing the articles only for them to fall flat because no one is opening them due to a poop title. This is something I want to get better at.

Titles matter.

9 - It Takes Way Longer Than I Expected To Write These Articles

One good thing about being a teacher is that I have summers off. This summer I committed to writing this blog.

I've had some 8-10 hour writing days already and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do so if I wasn't a teacher.

What's been on my mind is I that I need to get a lot more efficient at writing my articles, otherwise I don't know how I'm going to finish them once the school year starts again next week.

I guess I have to pay my dues, just like when you learn anything. And if I do, things will get easier and I will get faster.

I need to keep learning.

10 - I Don't Use AI To Write, But I Do Use It As An Assistant

I want to have an authentic voice. As a result I don't use AI to write my articles in place of my own writing.

However, I have found it useful for things like proofreading, grammar checking, quick research, and keywording.

I've even asked it to summarize my entire blog for me and ask it follow-up questions related to a potential niche. I was amazed at what it wrote back and it did verify that I was heading in a direction that I liked.

Aside: This is another reason why having my own URL (the MrJsn.com thing I mentioned earlier) has come in handy. Because there are no pay walls on the articles I've posted there, the AI was able to read all of my articles and generate a whole-blog summary.

I treat AI as my assistant and task it with things like I would a person who was helping me publish the blog.

What's Next?

Moving forward, I'd like to hit 50 total articles by Christmas. That's about one a week, plus a couple extras here and there. I think that's fair judging what I know about how busy it feels once the school year starts.

I need to start promoting more too. I need to continue learning about SEO and all that stuff that will help people find this work.

Most importantly, I need to continue to develop my voice and perspective and deliver stories to you that can make a difference in your life.

So, with that, I say thank you, and I'll see you there . . .