I once naively believed that each comment, blog post, or article I penned would seamlessly meld into the ceaseless discourse amidst the vast digital universe. Unfortunately, my words often seemed to dissolve into the ether, leaving me feeling like a monologuing actor performing to an empty theater, beseeching the indifferent shadows to lend their ears. The deafening silence, save the intermittent interruption of crickets, became the mocking soundtrack of my literary journey, steadily eroding my creative spirit.
As I relentlessly questioned my approach, a resounding epiphany soon enough struck me: perhaps I wasn’t in error, but rather, the right ears had simply not tuned in yet. Desperate to be heard, I employed every content marketing tactic at my disposal: hashtags, group discussions, and insightful commentary on popular blogs. Despite my earnest efforts, mostly devoid of overt self-promotion, I found myself ostracized and banished from forums as the proverbial outsider.
The myth of free promotion that yields tangible results is a tantalizing mirage, vanishing as spammers exploit and annihilate every potential opportunity. It took me time to realize the true secret to engaging the online community at large: not in incessant self-promotion, but in provoking dialogue and stimulating conversation. After all, the true aspiration of every writer should be to steer the conversation and exert mastery over their content.
To achieve this, I knew I must craft work that propels itself, fueled by endless discourse. By posing the right questions, I could become the catalyst for dialogue, encouraging participation and deepening connections within the community. This engagement begets success, transforming my voice from a solitary cry in the wilderness to the conductor of a cherished symphony. Without this critical ingredient of engagement, a writer’s voice is merely a whisper, lost amidst the tempest.
I once viewed content creation as a simple, mechanical process: write, generate traffic, and profit. This formulaic approach led to a false correlation between quality and monetary success. A popular piece might garner countless comments, signaling to search engines the relevance of the content, thereby driving even more traffic, views, and ad revenue. Yet, this monotonous cycle reduced the art of writing to a mundane chore, as if laundering one’s clothing could somehow yield financial gain.
While it’s tempting to chase the fleeting thrill of posts that quickly amass thousands of views, I came to appreciate the deeper satisfaction of creating dynamic evergreen content with potential for conversation starters.Rather than fixating on short-lived trends in search and social media, I choose to focus on quality over all else. Whether or not the content performs right away, it’s ready for when people are ready to see it.
A writer without an audience is like a musician playing to an empty crowd or a painter whose work languishes in a basement or attic out of view. To find those who will truly appreciate and engage with my work, I must persevere, chiseling away at the stone like a master sculptor until my true masterpieces emerge. In this unyielding pursuit, I shall ultimately discover the audience that will not only listen to my word, but respond with their own, elevating my art into the collective experience I’ve always yearned for it to be.
~ Amelia Desertsong
2 thoughts on “How Ignored Monologues Can Become Engaging Conversation Starters”
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In my 11 years of blogging, I’ve alternately craved becoming one of those viral bloggers making a career (or at least some extra bucks) as a writer or just a writer who creates for himself. I think wordpress is a dying platform, which I find sad, but I think they’ve done it to themselves. Their ridiculous writing prompts leave ‘bloggers’ merely answering questions without a lick of creativity. I’m sure my focus will change at some point in the future, but for now, I’m creating content that matters to me knowing its appeal is quite limited. Like you, I’m looking for the right ears, but given the size of the internet, that’s a needle in a hay-field.
I’m not sure that WordPress is “dying” per se, but they certainly aren’t doing the blogosphere any favors with their “prompts” which don’t really spark any true creative output. As a company they’re doing a lot of things I don’t like — my site is self-hosted so I don’t deal with the crazy amounts they’re forcing people to pay even to use the most basic features of WordPress. I too tried to go “viral” with a lot of my knowledge on various subjects, and had some success at least in the pageviews department, but I never “made it” promoting other people’s IP’s, products, and services. The best way to be a writer, I’ve found, is to just write what it is you want to write, no matter what anyone else tells you. People can suggest topics here and there, of course, but I have come to realize that, yes, the internet is huge, but in some ways, that’s an advantage. You don’t need a particularly large “tribe” to be nominally successful online. I’m in a position now where my writing doesn’t have to pay bills, but as I was discussing with my wife last night, if 1,000 people give you $100 a year, whether it be through Patreon, YouTube ad revenue, other subscriptions, etc. that’s $100,000 — minus fees and whatnot you’re looking at $75-80K which is still quite liveable. And you get to do your own thing and not worry about a thing. Turns out a lot of sponsors these days care more about eyeballs than the actual content, and individual patrons, I think, are the greatest thing to ever happen to online media. I just don’t bother with a Patreon or anything like that because I don’t need the money — I’d rather people who would otherwise sponsor me to support the people who need it to pay the bills. 🙂