Just open the notetaking app of your choice and start writing about anything you like, read it a day after, make some changes, and if you like it post it somewhere online. At least, this is what you should do when you’re just getting started.
I used to answer some random questions on Quora (you can see how bad my answers were) and a year later, in 2015, I started a free wordpress.com website to write about random tech stuff. And, that’s how my writing journey started.
At first, you do not need to invest any money to create your own blog for writing. You can use any social media or other free writing platforms to get started. Some platforms that I would suggest are:
- Medium.com
- Quora
- WordPress.com free subdomain
- Blogger.com
- Reddit, etc.
And, if you want, you can even write on your Facebook wall.
But the most important point here is, get started. If you’re not comfortable with posting your writings online, you can create a private journal and practice writing there.
Follow other people on social media, read their blogs, observe their writing styles and adapt.
Try to imitate the writers that you like and you will develop your own style with time.
And, once you’re confident enough, start thinking of creating your personal blog for more serious writing.
I committed this mistake of starting my own blog without even being able to write a single sentence properly and instead of practicing writing, I’d spend all my time trying to make my blog look good.
In fact, today, you do not even need to start a blog of yours. You can start writing Twitter Threads and gain a lot of experience and exposure from there. I have seen many people on Twitter being able to gain thousands of followers before even having a single blog. And, when they start their blog later, guess what, they already have an established audience.
All I am trying to say, starting a blog and then deciding what topics you would be writing is just not the correct way to do it. First, use the free and easy-to-use platforms like Twitter, Quora, or Medium to practice and then start one of your own a few months later.
Get a domain name related to what topic you will be writing about, get decent web hosting, and get started with all your energy. And, if you’re a developer, my advice would be to start a blog on Hashnode — it’s amazing.
You can keep writing on the platforms like Medium and Twitter for your whole life but after a while, you need to create your own online identity, your brand.
However, there are a lot of people who are writing on Medium for years and they do not even have a website of their own. Just for your information, Medium also pays the writers.
Maybe, I have increased your confusion by writing this but my goal is to make you aware of different ways that writers follow on the internet so that you can take your own decisions better.
In fact, this is my 5th or 6th blog, before that, there are a lot of failed projects in my bucket too. And, those are the reasons behind the successful ones.
If you want to read, here is my writing process. See, if you can get something valuable out of it.
Lastly, you learn writing by writing. So, just get started quickly and it doesn’t matter whether you’re publishing or not, at first. And, after you have some experience, start your own blog with full confidence.
And, not to mention, once you start, possibilities are unlimited.
That’s it.
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