Nikhil's Blog

What to write every day?

“Write every day”. Everyone who has picked up blogging has either given this advice or received it. Or both. It’s excellent advice.

There is a problem with it — what to write? You can write about your feelings, experiences, and events but eventually, you are going to run out of things to write. That blank page is not an easy thing to stare at.

I know because I have done it for hours and ended up with lots of frustration. If you are someone who has recently picked up writing or is interested in writing, you have got to make peace with that blank page.

I have been writing every day since the early days of blogging. There was no audience and yet I kept writing. I started with ranting. I made my blog a diary. I grew out of it and started writing about topics that mattered to me. Then I moved on and only focused on my stories. I was writing every day but not on my blog.

There is advice I want to give you as a writer without an audience (but a writer nonetheless) that you will have to face this question of “what to write?”. No amount of life experience will motivate you to write every day. Firstly, you can only have finite experiences and finite interpretations. Second, writing is a journey for a lifetime not for a semester.

So, I devised a method for myself which I will share with you here. I have been following this for short form and long form content both.

At the end of each day, reflect upon your day with purpose. If I tell you to define your day in one word what would it be? If it’s too mundane then think about your day in more detail, how many thoughts raced through your day? How many conversations did you have or were part of or were kept out of? What did you feel?

Here are some of the thoughts to get you started —

The goal is to pick that one dominating thought and think about it in more detail. Add your unique perspective to it. That is the most unique piece of content you can create. And you can create it forever because you are always going to feel something. You are always going to have some perspective because you are feeling it.

Maintain notes where you keep adding your thoughts by day. Add one or two lines describing your thoughts on which you can build an essay.

I have been writing for years and this has always worked for me. I have written over 3,000 tweets on my Twitter handle and every one of them is unique.

I haven’t had to repurpose my content yet and with this method, I doubt I will ever have to.