The Pressure Of Niche
By: Ellen Quirke
Tags: Writing, Voiced Thoughts, Writers Block, Thoughts On People, Niche

The Pressure Of Niche

What if your writing niche is no niche at all?

Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash

For a while now I have wanted to increase the amount I write on Medium. But the biggest problem for me was knowing where to start. I began my journey of exploration by reading some articles about how to write on Medium. As you all know Medium is not short on articles about how to write on Medium. I spent hours upon hours reading these articles, trying to soak in as much knowledge as possible hoping that it would give me guidance. My two biggest take-aways were improve your writing ability and choose a niche to write in. Instead of helping, it made me even more confused than ever.

I’ve done a lot of writing in my lifetime. Throughout high school and college I had to do a mix of writing; technical, creative, plays & research. While I didn’t necessarily enjoy all of it (cough, creative writing) at least it all added to my ability to write. Following my Bachelors Degree I went on to tackle a Masters, complete with a 100 page thesis. This was probably the biggest test of my ability to write and I was extremely proud of the result.

My ability to write also helped land me the job I am in now. My now boss needed the Help Centre for his SaaS Platform to be completely over-hauled and re-written from scratch. So while I didn’t have the direct industry experience for the role, he was confident that I could bring value from day one through my ability to write. 14 months on I have had three promotions and am working in an area of the company I could not have even imagined 12 months ago.

So if I was so confident in my ability to write why was it that every time I went to go and write an article I had massive writers block? The idea that you have to write in a “niche”.

You see I am someone who thinks about, and questions, everything. One day I could be interested in the price of Bitcoin, the next self-converting a van and then the following day advice on meditation. My brain jumps around all over the place. I consider it a blessing and a curse. But when it came to start writing on Medium, it was definitely a barrier to entry. How could I possible choose one topic to write about?

For some reason everyone has taken the position that in order to build an audience for your writing you need to stay on topic and write about a specific thing. I want to prove that idea wrong, and my thinking comes from Youtube.

On Youtube you might be suggested a video because of what you have previously watched, say Surfing. You watch the video and find the person who made it is pretty cool and entertaining, so you watch another one. You keep going down that rabbit hole watching videos from this person when you realise you aren’t watching Surfing videos anymore, because now they are documenting building their house. While you were first introduced to the person because of the topic of the initial video, you kept watching because you related to the person. So why can’t we do the same thing on Medium?

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

For the first time since I started to put a few things up on Medium I feel free with my writing. Up until now I kept getting writers block because I didn’t know what my “niche” was. Thinking that there is no way people will read my articles if they don’t all fall within a certain topic. But all that resulted in was me not writing at all, which still meant people weren’t reading what I had to say.

So this past week I created my very own publication that I believe enables the freedom to write about anything and everything. Whenever a thought, or question, runs through my head I want to be able to write about it. I want to voice that thought and share it with people who are interested in what I have to say. Voiced Thoughts is that place.

I’ve also come to the realisation that often we are not alone in our thoughts/feelings.

So I’m sure that if I was feeling weighed down by the idea of writing in a niche that others must be too. If your brain also runs at a million miles an hour and jumps around from one topic to another hopefully you can relate to my story. And Voiced Thoughts becomes a home for your writing too.