Psst: this post contains affiliate links because I mention a few books. Clicking on them will help support my writing but as you’ll see, I’m not exactly trying to sell anything here 😉
As I start the new year with several writing successes under my belt, I’ve been turning a question over in my mind: what next?
My approach to blogging has always been more scattershot than I’d like. I have a plan, but I also tend to write what I want, when I want.
This approach hasn’t been unsuccessful: I’ve built up a decent following over my five years at The ADHD Homestead. Readers take the time to write and thank me. Internationally-recognized experts respect and praise my work. My writing business has paid all its own bills for two years running.
However, I want my process for creating new content and allocating my precious work time to be more focused and evidence-based. In software development, if you don’t know why something works you ought to worry. You can’t replicate it reliably, nor do you know what might cause it to stop working. I’ve built a reasonably good online platform for my writing work, but I don’t know what’s under that platform’s foundation.
I want to know why my best content works
After two years of my business paying its own way, I’m ready for more. I’m ready to compensate myself fairly for my time, to expand my opportunities, but also to expand my mission.
When my work succeeds, people feel I’ve changed their lives for the better. My mission is to help people like me reach their full potential: something I see as a dire need in today’s world. Success doesn’t just mean paying myself a living wage. It means making the world a better place.
I’m starting by re-reading a few books — and my reader emails
The other day I re-read Ruth Soukup’s How to Blog for Profit Without Selling Your Soul to jumpstart my thinking. Then I picked up Tim Grahl’s Your First 1000 Copies for further inspiration. I ended up with a nice to-do list to start the new year.
I also dug back into my reader emails. I’ll look at site analytics and reader survey data too, but I wanted to start with a special group of people: those who proactively took time out of their day to contact me about my work.
How often have you sat down and emailed a writer to praise or thank them? I know my answer: never.
I’m a socially anxious introvert and the idea of contacting a writer directly feels really intimidating. But I also have ADHD. A lot of people with ADHD struggle to keep on top of email.
Many of my readers are people like me. I take it very seriously when someone sends a heartfelt email about my work. It means their feelings about my words overpowered any hesitation or barrier they may have had to writing that email — and I know how strong those barriers can be.
So why do people like me?
As I went through my file of reader emails, I copied excerpts into my notebook alongside my platform-building to-do list. I wanted a reminder of why I’m doing this: what I have to offer and what I want to create more of.
I’m beginning to realize I need to think less about why people should like me and my content and more about why people do like me and my content. Deploying social media and marketing best practices on the back of that should guarantees spotty success at best.
I would know: I’ve been playing the hit-or-miss game for five years now. My readers love my content, but only when they encounter it from a certain angle. I need more people to discover and read my work in the mindset that gets them saying things like this:
- Thank you for making me feel less alone
- This is the first time I’ve understood why I have these struggles, not just that I have them
- You help me understand myself better
- You’ve put words to experiences I’ve struggled my whole life to articulate
- Thank you for giving us a voice
Readers don’t come to me for a quick fix. They don’t look to me as a subject-matter expert. They seek me out because they want to see themselves.
It’s about stories
In fiction, writing with conviction, with emotion, and without restraint gives readers permission to drop their restraints as well. It gives them permission to feel deeply, to be their most authentic selves.
Many women with ADHD have spent their whole lives doing the opposite: tempering, concealing, or overcompensating for who they are. Struggling but not understanding why. Imagine the validation of seeing your lived experience articulated on the page honestly and without apology.
As a blogger I have the opportunity to write true stories, casting myself as the protagonist. My stories aren’t just about me. They’re an invitation for my readers to embark on their own emotional journey and find themselves in my words.
My grandmother — a vocal non-writer — has always marveled at my ability to put life into words. Acknowledging that my Mom-mom is one of the most biased sources in the known universe, I think she may be onto something. I’ve always said of my work on The ADHD Homestead that my only true area of expertise is my own experience. This sounds self-deprecating, but it’s also a strength — perhaps my greatest one.
It’s time to double down on vulnerability
Perhaps in 2020 I should focus more on telling it like it is. In the past, I’ve equivocated on certain topics. I’m happy talking about my tentative embrace of the Apple Watch or sharing my strategies for a stress-free morning routine, but anyone can do that. I need to write about the messy stuff, too.
Last fall I started having a weekly drink with friends while our children participated in a karate class. It turned into something of a cathartic experience. The first time we sat around a table and spoke openly about our most frustrating parenting moments — times when we’d broken down, when we’d said the most regrettable things, when we’d felt like awful mothers — I was overwhelmed with relief. There were other women, other mothers, like me. I was okay, and not because someone gave me the perfect parenting advice or offered something that had worked great for their kids or reassured me I was doing fine. I was okay because I was not alone.
My mom friends gave me a gift whose value I cannot put into words. I can give that same gift to my readers. Their emails say I’ve given it to them already.
This year I want to give it more. I want to talk about things I’ve previously shied away from: my real feelings about taking ADHD medication every day. How some days I feel I’ve failed my son so completely, the thought of it threatens to swallow me whole. Everything I never wrote about because it felt too controversial or went against the advice to “keep it positive.”
It’s a little scary. When we make ourselves vulnerable, we risk rejection. But we also enable a deep, authentic connection with others. And if more people find that connection not just with my words but with themselves, it’s worth a little risk, a little rejection.
Stay tuned. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
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