The 5 Most Common Misconceptions About Writing Daily—Debunked

1. You must be an expert.

If we all waited until we were experts, none of us would ever write about anything in the first place. Writing is a natural act of expressing our view on an idea. It’s a daunting, yet beautiful, way to better understand the world around us through the exercise of articulation. You all know that I’m no expert in many of the areas I write about—sure, I have more experience in certain realms like photography, startups, or social media, but I write about so much more. (See #4)

The beauty of writing about topics for which you’re no expert is that your angle of approach is one of genuine nascency and curiosity. Sometimes, the things we know best are the hardest to creatively articulate because we’ve internalized so much of our thoughts towards them. Take photography, for example, probably the area in which I feel most comfortable speaking from a *thought leadership *position. It is the one topic I have the toughest time writing about. Mainly, because I’ve thought so deeply about each aspect of photography that to articulate my true position on any one area in a concise and clear manner would be extremely hard. That’s one challenge I hope to continue to take on in the coming year.

2. You have to spend hours writing and editing.

This is patently false. Do certain writers spend hours and hours writing, editing, re-writing, etc.? Of course. Is that required to pick up a pen (or flip open your computer) and start the habit of daily writing? Most certainly not. My process tends to be that I’ll write for anywhere between 20 minutes and one hour (max!) and give one quick review for any glaring typos or grammatical issues. Once I do the once-over, I publish and move on with my day. Are there posts that would’ve benefited from an extra hour or two of writing? An extra push to refine my explanation or positioning? Definitely.

A large part of daily writing is knowing how to balance the desire to write a perfect piece with the act of building a consistent and sustained daily habit.

3. You should write with the intention of going viral.

Due to the way our digital content consumption model is set up across the web, there is an unhealthy obsession with going viral—thousands of shares, millions of views, and more. I’ll admit, I’ve absolutely fallen victim to its charm before. Heck, I even wrote a piece about **How I Hit 100K Views On Medium In Less Than 3 Months. **But the vast majority of my posts will never see more than a few hundred views and I’m completely comfortable with that.

Here’s the thing you need to understand about intention as it relates to daily writing, it must be first and foremost for you. You should have a goal that is not related to going viral—mine are:

To practice publiclyTo provide an inlet for inspiration and an outlet for expressionTo have space for slow thoughtTo build better habitsRead my full post about those below.

The Real Reasons Why I Write DailyThere are 1,000 reasons not to, here are 4 reasons I trytheascent.pub

4. You have to pick one topic area as your swim lane.

Society pushes us to only focus our attention in one area so as to become experts in that field. As I mentioned in #1, daily writing is a wonderful escape from that. You are not bound by peer pressure, career aspirations or professional ladders—you’re free to explore any and all ideas.

Some stress that if you “want to be known for something,” the topics you write about must reflect that. They say that you shouldn’t write about so many different things so to confuse your readers as to what they should expect.

Well, what they can expect, as cliché as it sounds, is the unexpected. Daily writing shouldn’t be prescribed by anyone else. If you want to write about elephants in Africa one day and workplace etiquette the next, go for it. By not inhibiting your topic areas to just one swim lane, you open up the entire pool of curiosity for exploration. Now, go swan dive off the deep end.

5. No one will notice your efforts.

This was the one misconception I actually thought would be true. I was convinced that day after day, post after post, not a single soul would notice any of my efforts. And I went into the exercise expecting and being OK with that.

But as I near my 100th daily post, I have been overwhelmed by the old connections that have come out of the woodwork, distant friends who’ve reconnected after reading a piece that resonated with them, new opportunities presenting themselves to me—all because of this daily habit I’ve built. I’ve even been able to make a bit of money on the side from this (shoutout to the Medium Partner Program), which isn’t a bad thing either.