Write what you think about most of the time,
Write what you real know deeply, and you wish others to know too.
Write what you believe in.
These are the rules I live by as a writer.
I didn’t know these before; in fact, I started to call myself a writer confidently mainly after starting to write online—It has been about two years now I write for others to read—before I was the guy with my diary and notebooks never wanted anyone to see my little secrets.
The first time I started it was on a WhatsApp group; I wrote a long chat message, can you imagine! But I did it anyway because I felt compelled to share what I had learned as a recent college graduate—there were circumstances which made me be in a group with a bunch of college students.
In all these years with my experience of writing I have come to realize a few things:
-You will know you didn’t know it well until you start to write about it. Writing has this strange way of showing how dumb I’m in things I usually consider myself smart while thinking or talking about it.
-Most of my ideas came while I was writing. You can’t believe this a tonne of how the general idea of risefromCollege is it’s from all the essays I wrote.
-I get to understand it more if I write it. Writing put my worries, new insights and knowledge I got into clarity; it’s like I’m rewatching from a different angle close up.
-Writing is the way of thinking. Whenever I’m stuck, whenever I need to make a decision writing gives me power than merely just thinking it up in my head.
These experiences are so profound to me that it made me to take into heart writing as a MOAT I have against others.
But there is other two things which were happening in the background alongside writing in all this time:
The first one is I started programming. This goes back in my second year in college when I needed a website for the startup idea I was working on. The solution was to use website builders; at the time I was trying Wix and Squarespace. But these services were expensive to me and I got limited features, so I decided to learn coding to make my own websites.
The second thing was I was so into making a startup of my own. This led me to dive in into the life of startups early on, trying out many things, failed a bunch of time and finally got this one clear understanding: make something people want—thanks YC, though I got rejected once :)
The lessons I learned in these other experiences which applies to my writing:
-In programming you can’t understand well the codes you haven’t written. You have to have the context of what the coder was thinking, you have to be aware what is the codebase for.
-In startups it's best to live the problem you are solving. You have to feel the pain as your users so as to make the best solution for them—that’s the only way I can pay you
I was into writing my diaries heavily which made me to believe that I was also a writer. But these beliefs faded whenever I sat down to try to write something for others to read; I couldn’t bring myself to write anything useful and sounding. Ultimately, I ended up doubting myself if I really had the potential.
There was a time I tried to write with AI, but it didn’t work out and I was not proud of my work.
But one day as I was writing to a WhatsApp group full of college students—as a big bro bored and decided to dump a long chat message—surprisingly I wrote it seamlessly. More shockingly I got good feedback even though I wrote it in a mixture of English and Swahili :)
It was advice to the students based on what I have seen in my first days as an employee.
Then it hit me: I knew this stuff so deep, I was thinking about this thing most of the time while at work, it was something I had a mixture of regrets as I didn’t know it well when I was in college and I wished I knew it too. I was able to write it not because I was just lucky; it was because I was experiencing it myself, I knew the right words to describe my pain as I have been feeling it every day.
I got good feedback regardless because someone could feel me, as it was like I was a runaway student who came back to class to share what I have found; but now as a student and not some professors—there was a sync between my readers and me as I used myself as a scapegoat.
That long chat message turned into one of the first essays in risefromCollege and it marked the birth of it. From there I realized the trick I can use to be a “real” writer:
Write what you are living.
You are writing for someone else to read. Just like how one can’t read well the codes he hasn’t written, one can’t read well the things not written to sync with his ways of thinking and viewing the world. The best way to get this link is to be that person, have the same life to have the same patterns of thinking.
You can’t sell well the product people don’t want. There is no better test for that than trying to buy it yourself first. Live the problem you are writing. If you need it probably there is a section in this world like you will need it too.
All my writing has been this way so far, there is a good chance you can see my thoughts pattern from everything I write online.
I believe the right customers will read what I write if it fits their needs.