Featured Image Credit | Caroline Koppelman | road2college.com
It’s effortless for anyone to talk about what worked for them. That content is advertised all over their social media platforms. What worked and continues to work for people is constantly in the public eye.
What didn’t work is another story. That stuff often gets deleted and sometimes never spoken about again. Erased from existence like it wasn’t what lead to what finally did work. While I also didn’t keep everything, I still have topics on my blog as of this writing that I don’t feel the need to revisit.
Music
A few of my old posts from 2 years ago are music related. In those early days, I thought writing about anything as it gained attention would also bring attention to my blog, so I wrote about Avril Lavigne’s Head Above Water when I eventually stopped listening to it. They’re not among my worst pieces of writing in general, but I came to the conclusion that it takes a lot more than enjoying listening to something to really write about it.
Not doing much more than that was an easy decision to make. If I wanted to write about it like I write about writing, I’d have to put a lot of extra thought into exactly how to do it well. That’s more effort I’d rather not put into a topic I probably wouldn’t write often about anyway.
Ko-Fi Posts
At one point, I thought it was a good idea to create a Ko-Fi account, work hard on filling it up with movie reviews and the odd short story, gain tips from readers and put those little savings away. I even still have a link to it somewhere on my blog. Here’s the thing though: that felt like stealing.
The default tip amount is set at €3. There’s good quality indie author’s self-published books on Kindle that cost less than that and there I was looking for that amount for reviews and short stories! It didn’t feel right. If I’m going to make money as a writer, then I’m going to give people much better quality. All good things take time.
Short Stories (in Script Format)
Believe it or not, this is the reason I have this blog today. My initial goal was to have somewhere to keep my short story scripts and build a portfolio out of them. Perhaps they’d gain attention and readers would flock to them. In 2021 thinking back to stories I wrote in 2016, I couldn’t be more grateful that that didn’t happen!
I was barely writing for 3 years at that point – pure beginner phase. Nothing I wrote was any good and the stuff that still manages to bring a smile to my face doesn’t make any sense! They’re the definition of ‘written for me’. I wouldn’t dare show anyone under serious circumstances. I’m glad I didn’t leave any of those behind.
My blog hasn’t been all about smoothly moving from one post to the next and that’s not a bad thing. The topics that didn’t work for me the way I intended are just as important as any that did. My proof of that is this entire blog. Don’t be afraid of the possibility that something might fail. Just dive in and give it a go. A screw up could lead to a glow up. It sure did for me.
Dalen Flynn 
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