Ten subtle habits of the top 1% online writers

Mastery Den, Tuesday Edition, 6-min read.

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I’ve been writing online for fifteen years.

I wasn’t always deliberate with it, and I frequently lost faith and stopped writing with as much intensity. I stopped entirely for some stretches from burnout and a sense of frustrated dissatisfaction.

But by sticking with it for the most part, I now have an audience of over 160,000 to show for my work of having an idea, writing it down, formulating it into a short written piece, and sharing it on the Internet.

I’ve learned a lot by studying other impactful and high-growth online writers. But, most of all, I’ve learned from my own struggles, my doubts and my small wins.

Here are ten habits that will get you far as a non-fiction writer if you want to grow an online audience:

Don’t bring your everyday self to the work.

Great writing is an opportunity to sprout butterfly wings.

Crap writers take their mopey, doubtful selves and extend that grey personality to the page. Well, no shit — no one will care. Great writers who stay in this for the long haul and see incredible success take risks.

They explore the parts of themselves, usually kept in the dark. Within all of us are numerous glowing personalities waiting to come out through our words.

Our work is to unlock them.

A good session should invigorate you rather than feel like work.

Write about things that speak to an authentic passion.

You will run out of steam fast if you’re only writing to fill a daily word count quota, to make money, or to grow an audience.

You must write about something that aligns with a deeper cause that sparks you up. The topics you write about need space for learning and growth.

If you know everything about your field, you’ll get bored. What’s your deeper cause?

This comes from knowing your resentments and peeves.

Where have you seen damage and pain in your life? What do you hate about the world? Start here.

Write your way to change.

Understand ‘easing.’

You better bet I just coined that term just now.

But it’s true. Writing isn’t always easy. It’s an odd activity if you really think about it.

It can remind us of school and assignments and scary deadlines. We can often overwhelm ourselves with the nature of the work in the theatre of our clever heads. Give yourself a leg-up whenever you need it.

That ‘leg up’ comes in the form of taking on a smaller challenge before something more significant.

If you’re sluggish, write a tweet. Then, a short LinkedIn post. Write a list. Write anything. Free-write total garbage on a page for a minute. You’re easing into the next step this way.

This loosens you up and chases out any straggling demons before you feel better about writing some more.

Have an opinion.

Everything can be seen from multiple sides.

People want to see your side. They are dying for a resolute perspective, even if you don’t feel it 100% inside. You aren’t some wet leaf in the wind.

There’s no traction there. You are in the business of taking someone by the lapels and shaking them into action, even if done with class and grace. What’s your take?

The more controversial, the more heads will turn.

You must redirect your concept of success.

Most budding writers enter the scene heavily reliant on getting engagement and even making money. They want it fast.

They view success, even at this early stage in their writing career, as seeing results that rely on their readers. Likes, comments and shares.

But if you rely on popularity too soon, you will grow disappointed and want to quit. Because popularity takes a lot of time for most.

Redirect your concept of success from viewer results to simply this:

I had an idea. I started a written piece. I finished the piece. I shared it publicly.

That is success. That is something you must be driven by.

Over time, the results you want will come — but this must be seen as secondary to the success of simply growing as a writer.

Rely less on positive emotions.

The most gifted writers work with their full range of emotions.

This applies to the process of writing itself but also to the art of preparing to write. If we only wrote when we felt good, we’d rarely write.

Great writers are excellent emotional managers. They write at their designated time and place, regardless of their emotional frequency.

Yes, try to raise your frequency to benefit your creativity through good diet and health. But then you’re on your own. And you don’t want to be biased to positive feelings. Some of the best writing comes out of frustration.

And the most consistent writers write their way out of boredom.

Be ruthless with stray words.

You’re not here to give us more to read.

You’re here to deliver a cathartic experience as efficiently as possible. This means cutting out those words and sentences you like but aren’t needed to convey the meaning.

This is like the difference between a gourmet fish meal and a stodgy, bland culinary mess.

You’re delivering far more value by giving us more with less and saving us time.

Prioritise speed.

Harper Lee wrote two novels over her lifetime.

She wrote well, but I suspect she bored herself into inaction through her slowness.

You give yourself a real advantage when you aim to do things quickly. Its a huge myth that writing quality decreases when you write fast. As long as you aren’t rushing, you’re good.

You must act when an idea seizes you. You need to be in the game of movement and tapping keys like you’re massaging an angry skunk.

Act quickly. Put out more writing. Write faster. Produce more.

When you go fast, your brain forms new pathways contributing to greater creativity and effectiveness.

You create momentum and leverage.

It cannot be a vanity project.

I see many writers start before spluttering and quitting because they made it all about them. It was never about their reader.

They wrote because they wanted to show off. They wrote to impress.

When they saw the molasses reaction to these grandiose posts they lost hope. Instead, write like a leader or an entertainer would.

You’re here to express yourself but do it in the spirit of connection, compassion and community.

The best writers entertain themselves.

If you know exactly what you’ll write before you’ve started, I’m not surprised you lost interest.

Writing should be a process of exploration and filling in gaps.

Most of all, it should be a process of discovering yourself and what bizarre and world-changing ideas you keep tucked away in that mind of yours.

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