I read a lot of articles on medium.com now. The first year or so of being on the site, I read nothing, as I figured I was there to write. I’m reading other articles and responding to them, and that’s coming back my way. I gained about 50 followers in the past week, putting me 4 shy of the 100 that I stated as my goal on my 200th post.
A lot of the articles tell me I need to find my niche and continue to write towards that sector of what the human experience is. I don’t really like that. I want to write about a lot of things, but I can only write what I know.
If I had to pick my niche, I couldn’t pick one, but one definitely picked itself: addiction, and trying not to get killed by addiction are so much of what my content has been about. I stop and think about it “shit, all i write about is drugs, and addiction”. Not everyone has lived inside it and not everyone understands it. It’s one of my main objectives to present my point of view to expand the understanding of the non addicted civilian, so that they can be compassionate to the addict closest to them (everyone that isn’t an addict, knows, and perhaps even loves one).
The second thing I write about most of the time is living with a mental illness or mood disorder. I have bi polar disorder, and when I don’t take care of it, it fucks me up. So I’ve written from the inside of dark depressive episodes, and savage manic episodes. This topic is the one that really makes me feel vulnerable, because there’s so much stigma there. Dave Chappelle was talking about being called crazy after walking away from his show, and saying it was dismissive, I could get with that, if I’m crazy it takes away from any statement I make
The final niche is music, I’m obsessed with it and I’m confident that I know my shit. I spent my youth chasing live music and I spend all my time consuming recorded music. I make a lot of playlists. I want to get people into the next song that completely enriches or even saves their life (my life has been saved by songs, so this isn’t a bridge too far).
I don’t want this to mean that I only write about a few things and ignore all my other ideas. I want to write, to write about whatever comes to mind. As I read more blog content, it makes me think about things I never considered. Is this good? I’m not sure but it’s structurally changing my approach, I think. I want to grow, I want my writing to grow, and I’d like my audience to grow too. Let’s see where it goes by the time I reach my 300th post…I don’t intend to quit.
