Confessions of a successful writer
By: Nicole Alexandra Michaelis
Tags: Careers, Ux Writing, Career Advice, Writing, Creative

The keyboard feels almost foreign to me. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I’m looking at it without pressure, without anything in the back of my head that needs to get typed out for someone. I’m not writing copy or an email or a proposal. I’m just writing.

I’m trying to recognize my old friend in the dust between the keys, some of them faded. I squint at the screen, suddenly much more intimidating than it has been in a long time.

Being a corporate writer and being a writer are two worlds colliding. Two very different worlds.

Now, at almost 30 and after a solid 15 year-long writing career, if you count the only half-legal freelance business I started at 14, I feel this statement in my bones. I feel exhausted. I also feel a tiny bit proud.

Not as proud as I’d like to feel though. And here is why.

I knew I wanted to be a writer sometime in 3rd or 4th grade. I wrote poems and stories for my friends, my grandmas, myself. As a teen, I spent my evenings writing characters in online role-playing forums. In these forums, you would first write 5–10 pages of a character description. Then, you would find another player and both of you would take turns in describing the characters’ interaction. On average, I’d hit about 10k words each week doing this. Later, every time a teacher asked class to write an essay or an opinion piece, my chest would almost explode from excitement at the same time as my classmates let out annoyed sighs. I look back fondly at these memories now but for many years, I struggled with them. See, the thing with writing is, it’s not cool unless you’re successful. Barely anyone encourages a young writer. Eyes are rolled when it’s mentioned as a possible career. You’ll hear things like “anyone can write”, “that’s not a job”, “just do it as a hobby”. To this day I question how the insecure girl that loved writing managed to bear all this talk and still went for a career in writing. Every day I wonder how I did it.

But it wasn’t magic at all. It wasn’t luck either. I think, that really I didn’t become a writer at all. I was a writer trying to make other things work (they didn’t) and so I had two options: give up or write on. I chose the latter and here we are.

Today, I’ve made hundreds of thousands writing professionally. In my teens, I started out writing articles, landing pages and reports. I later transitioned to copywriting, content writing and corporate communications. Today, I mainly write user experience copy. Over the years I’ve also been fortunate enough to be asked to teach others how to write in the context of content marketing, UX writing and general copy. Everyone who knows me will tell you I’m passionate about my work. My parents don’t understand what a UX writer does and why anybody would pay them the money they get paid. I sometimes wonder if UX writing has the highest pay per word, if we’d break it down, but of course, it’s a job that is barely about the writing so it wouldn’t be fair.

It’s fair to say I’ve had a successful career as a writer. A successful writer. A rare breed. A dream for many. But then why am I only a little proud?

Because this professional writing career only thrives when I sacrifice the words begging to be typed inside my head. The ones that no one is paying for. All the ones that no one will ever read because they don’t make it past the publish-button. The ones that no one will understand, because they’re simply too personal. The words I need to write, but often don't.

Being a writer in a corporate context is like a binge-eating disorder. You are constantly writing, but you’re barely aware of the words anymore. Everything is just output. One more word, one hundred, thousands.

It’s not really what I came here for.

Last winter I published my first poetry collection. It was the biggest achievement for me until that point in my life. It barely paid me anything. But that didn’t matter. It was a book of words only written for my own peace of mind, suddenly consumed by friends and strangers, giving them ideas, igniting memories, sparking feelings. Even just thinking about it now, warmth radiates from my chest and my eyes get a little watery.

Which brings me back to the beginning. Being a corporate writer and being a writer are two worlds colliding. Two very different worlds.

At the end of the workday, I’ve binged so many words, I’ve spent so much creative energy, there simply isn’t anything left to grow a poem from or to inspire the next chapter of my novel or to even write this.

This, I write on a windy Sunday. And as I type out these words I’m painfully aware of the thousands, the millions of words that I’ve sacrificed during these last months of not really writing. Of not making the time. Not having the energy, because I’ve prioritized writing for money.

In the eyes of the world, I’m a successful writer. But after typing this over the last 40 minutes, feeling what I’m feeling now, I know this is just another one of those system flaws. A glitch in the matrix. The world’s perspective on success, even my perspective on success, is based on the wrong definition.

I like my job.

But I am addicted to a high that can only be achieved when typing out ideas, fantasies, feelings, irrational fears that eat away at me while I slumber. And like any addict, every day feels like chasing the good path over just one more hit.

Here’s my hit today. May it inspire you to question yours.