Clocks

A first-year anniversary of Stephen's newsletter

Not all clocks are round: Kostas GR / Flickr

My birthday fell on the 7th of July. I had it somewhere in mind to do a commemorative post to mark one year of starting my newsletter. As the day drew closer excuses kept springing up, pushing me to procrastinate till I completely put it off.

The day itself was not one I particularly enjoyed. On the morning of the 6th, which happened to be my dad’s birthday, I began to express symptoms of what I assumed to be malaria. It would turn out to be much worse. I was curled up in bed shivering as though I was undergoing an exorcism. Then came the migraines which didn’t ease up despite self-medication. The night I was rushed to the hospital was hellish. You should have seen me, a grown man, acting like a petulant child. I was restlessly delirious and it took quite the intervention to get me in a calmer state.

As anyone who has experienced typhoid will tell you, it is an especially nasty illness. It is resistant to common antimalarials and is only properly treated by aggressive combination therapy. At one point I had one simple prayer: heal me dear God, or just kill me. Well, I was healed and I’m happy to be back once again, writing a long awaited draft.

Over the course of the last year I’ve taken the liberty to write on topics dear to my heart and even some that are on the peripheries of my expertise. As I’ve stated before, there was never really a long term goal to it. I just decided to do it and make it a weekly thing. However, as time wore on, I found out that keeping to a weekly schedule was tough. So I varied it fortnightly, monthly, or even longer as my work demands grew.

When I first really started writing for an audience, I had recently become a huge (still am) fan of the British rock band, Coldplay. I was so in love with them that I found a way of referencing them in my writings, subtly or overtly. My first public newsletter titled Mylo Xyloto, which was based on an allegory of the hammer and the screw, was the name of Coldplay’s fifth studio album. Subsequent titles, including this article you’re reading, follow a similar pattern and are named after Coldplay albums or songs such as LeftRightLeftRightLeft, Twisted Logic, Adventure of a Lifetime, Up in Flames, The Escapist—and many more.

The other reason for adopting this style of naming my articles was to act as a teaser and in the process, provide some surprise value. Sometimes it worked, but it also brought a significant disadvantage in the context of SEO as the title head often didn’t reflect the body of the article. I tried to use the sub-headings to rectify this.

In the one year since I started I’ve learned a great deal, some of which I’ll share with any of you who want to take up writing or start a newsletter. I’ve gone outside my comfort zone and written things I wasn’t sure I had the range for, which I believe improved me as a writer and gave me the courage to take on more ambitious work.

The most important “trick” to the trade is that there’s no substitute for consistency. If you think of reasons why you shouldn’t do it, the universe will conspire to make your thoughts become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So start small, write that “rubbish” draft, and keep on going. It’s only day one, you will get better.

Emulate people you like to read. It might sound counterintuitive but every great writer had someone they admired. Over time with ardent study and practice, they refined themselves and carved out a unique style for themselves. So why not you?

Be prepared to make mistakes, oh yes I did—and still do. I like to keep an eye for detail but even then, one word out of place can give a sentence a whole new context and convey an unintended meaning. The important thing is to recognize and work on them. Grammatical errors can be eliminated using writing aids like Grammarly and Hemingway although I never use them. Still, they are nice to have in your corner. It never pays to linger over minimal errors and if they are grave ones, accept the responsibility and issue a correction.

There is the vital need for research and rigor in analysis, while also avoiding the logical trap of overgeneralization when trying to drive home a point. Another thing I’ve learned is that there’s such a thing as too much. Like every good prosecutor in a cross examination will tell you, know when to rest when you already have the upper hand.

If the lawyer pushes too hard, a small crack may emerge that undermines their case. Similarly, in writing—especially if you resort to using case studies or analogies—stick with the relevant few and use them to make the pertinent point. If you overextend your analogy or try to put too much seasoning in the broth, you risk stultifying and ultimately, alienating your reader.

I learned the value of feedback which is very helpful for young writers. But, a word of caution: feedback is a double-edged sword that can be positive or negative. Positive feedback may come from friends who genuinely support you and want you to do well and it is inspiring especially on days when posts don’t do great numbers.

However, you must try, hard as it may, to not dwell too much on it because it can lure one into a false sense of arrival. Negative feedback is also useful and does not always come from “enemies.” Because I understand the effort that goes into putting out a piece of creative content, I naturally default to praise openly and criticize privately. And even when I criticize, I often preface it with some good humor or compliment to “soften the blow.”

I haven’t yet hacked the technique to getting viral posts. In truth, there is no one surefire method as it often requires a mix of consistent high quality output, understanding the audience you’re writing for, timing and a bit of luck.

Going viral on quality content is every writer’s dream for what good is one’s writing if there’s no one to read it? It so happened once that I went viral fortuitously. My post on NFTs was published at about the same time as news of a major NFT crash was awash on social media, so I shamelessly plugged a link to it on a Twitter thread that was generating a lot of reactions and voila! I got more traffic that day than in the previous month combined. I also got new followers too. So there’s one tip right there.

A better place to learn the art of marketing your content to a wider audience might be found in a resource recommended to me by a friend aptly titled The Content Marketing Handbook. There are gems there, I assure you.

With the clock having come a full year, I’ve shared bits of my writing lessons and experience which I have now relayed to you as advice. I’m humbled by the over 20 articles and several of you who find what I write interesting enough, for which I have earned your unwavering readership. Many thanks to you all. Perhaps in my next article I can get back to discussing matters of the day while I look forward to any suggestions on what you think those should be in the comments below.

A happy one-year anniversary to me, let’s do this again!