I achieved it in less than three months — Here the keys

It never crossed my mind to becoming a top Medium writer and it happened in a short period of time. In fact, I didn’t know either the simple fact that Medium decorates your profile with that label.

One day I woke up and I checked the email as usual and guess what? A Medium email had arrived in my inbox. I opened it and the message said I was a top writer on the advice topic.

I didn’t understand what was going on. At the time, I didn’t know such a thing. After a little research, I got the point.

I couldn’t believe it. I can’t describe that moment, I was just really happy and proud of myself.

I hit that milestone in just two months without even publishing every day. It has nothing to do with me as a writer, but with the content itself, the uniqueness, feelings, and emotions it releases, and advice that is part of the heart of the piece.

Over the writing journey, there are a few facts and keys that help you to reach that milestone, not only one time like me but several times.

I am talking about the power of the beginning stage as a writer, who is your piece for, your writing intentions, what are the topics you enjoy the most, quality over quantity, headlines, and article scaffold.

Let’s jump to them just right now.

The Journey to get there

First things first. I don’t know exactly how I stumbled upon with Medium. But it is one of the most powerful things that have happened to me.

When I started to write on Medium my real intentions were to find a space to express my thoughts, spread my voice, increase my blog audience somehow, and in the end, I just wanted to write for fun. I never thought of earning money.

I didn’t even know that Medium could pay my bills. Now it does. I don’t need to spend my whole day writing, one hour or two a day is enough to get a few dollars more into my pocket.

This is what I did — Quick view

• Make writing a daily habit. I started to write consistently at least for 30 minutes every single day — It doesn’t mean publishing.
• Find clarity about the right target my piece is for. I wanted to reach out to beginners, programmers, and readers. I wanted to advise and encourage them through my pieces.
• Write about topics I enjoy the most. Here is when time can fly without being aware of it.
• Bet on quality. Despite I was starting out the writing journey my focus was to deliver a bit of honest advice, helpful and with actionable items to go through.
• Learn a little bit about headlines and article scaffolds.
• Enjoy the process — Writing is a long-term voyage so you have daily chances to be happy.

The beginning

When I started out the journey here on Medium I had zero experience in writing. But, there was one thing I was completely sure about — I wanted to share my thoughts somehow, learned lessons, mistakes, failures, self-doubts, and everything in between.

I published my first post on Medium on Jun 1, 2019. It was the first post in English, my second language. It was so ugly.

Since then I have learned a lot of things about writing. The importance of headlines, article scaffold, grammar, type of articles, productivity, and writing tips. In the end, I have become a better writer and human being too.

At this stage, I was not a consistent writer at all. I used to write at most one article monthly. I had no writing goal altogether.

Things started to change after three months when I published my first piece. I started to feel how writing made me feel so good and motivated. By doing it I was learning new things and faster.

Make writing a daily habit

Consistency is everything. Yet, it shouldn’t hurt you. You can effortlessly devote 30 minutes of writing every single day until the last day of your life. It’s so simple. Could you give an excuse to not do it?

I committed and since then I am tied to a daily writing habit. Similar to brushing your teeth or drinking water, you do it on autopilot mode or as a body request. When you don’t do it you feel unfulfilled at the end of the day.

Who is this piece for and why?

I am not a professional writer yet, but one thing I have learned over a few months of the writing journey is that before starting to lose myself in the writing I need to be clear enough on who will be the reader, and why this piece is important? This allows me to focus on and write something really helpful.

Whenever I am going to start a new piece I ask myself Who is this piece for? What is the reason it exists? and I write down the answers. It brings clarity about the piece’s intentions and the important things I should focus on in order to deliver the right message.

Your writing intentions are keys

Every writer has his own reasons or intentions by writing. There’s no such bad or good thing about this. It is a normal and human desire to earn more money, to gain more followers, to get more readers, or to become a successful writer.

Yet, I have proven that once we dirty the writing process thinking about the outcome it will not work at all.

I wrote this and this piece that played a big role in this achievement. The most important lesson from them is that I never thought about money or gaining fame or even getting more followers.

My real intentions were just to share a few things I had experienced through my programming career, that’s all.

Since then, I understood that your intentions play a big role in your writing success, or at whatever you are trying to achieve.

The more honest, helpful, and unique your pieces are, the more chances you have to get traction, get curated, read, and clapped by thousands of readers.

Write about something you really enjoy

This sounds obvious, but sometimes we forget to write about what we enjoy the most and instead we write about something which purpose might be getting more money, increase our follower list or gain fame

I write and teach about programming, productivity, personal growth, and businesses. These are the matters I really enjoy sharing with you.

There are many articles out there advising the same thing. But, how do I know I am enjoying the piece I am working on? It is simple. You write like a crazy person, you don’t think about time, you lose yourself in the writing process. Anything else needs to wait.

Bet on quality over quantity

From my point of view when you are just starting out something new its quality, it doesn’t matter. I am a big fan of quantity instead.

At this stage, you need to produce articles as much as you can in order to gain writing speed and confidence. On top of that, keep in mind the more pieces you write, the high chances you will have that one piece will have success.

Yet, this special journey has shown me that even at the very beginning you can deliver really good content.

The two stories mentioned above are proof of that. They forced Medium to decorate my profile with such a title. As soon as they were published they gained big traction.

Article scaffolding

There is a basic structure you need you to keep in mind when you write a piece. The introduction, the body, and the final thoughts section. However, the really important thing about this is how they are connected to each other.

If a user can easily identify these three sections and find a connection between them the reading experience will be great. You will not lose your readers, you will lead them along with the piece.

Headlines

One curious thing about headlines is that I didn’t know that I needed to write good and clear headlines. My goal was to create something helpful and that’s it.

Yet, you need to spend time on this for different reasons. First off, because it will give a clear idea of what you want to deliver. Second, you have more chances that your piece will be accepted by a large publication since you will catch their attention. Finally, the more clear and powerful your headline is, the more readers you will attract.

Conclusion

I regret haven’t started this journey early. But I am really happy to be on board now. I compare writing with someone to whom you want to lose the whole day. It is the right companion and space to find a little bit of peace and happiness.

Through writing, you have the power to help, inspiring, and encouraging others. That is all the reason why to write for, the rest of the things will arrive by their own nature.

Thanks for reading! I hope this turned out to be helpful.