Writing Your Interests

It’s not uncommon for a writer to think or say something like: “I want to write, but I don’t know what to write about.”

Writing regardless of whether or not you “want” to write is one of the most difficult obstacles for aspiring writers to overcome. An equally difficult hurdle to clear is figuring out how to write any time, any place, whether or not you have a clear idea in your head already.

The best advice I can give to people who have found themselves in this situation is to try focusing not on what to write about, but instead on what they want to share with potential readers.

On Writing Your Interests

Your interests are someone else’s interests. You are not the only one who cares about that one topic you could give an entire presentation on without preparing a slide deck.

Therefore, the easiest thing to write about is the thing you are most interested in. I, for example, am the most prolific and best paced when I am writing about Star Wars, a topic I know a lot about despite it being relatively useless in the corporate publishing landscape. I can write five or more articles a day on that topic alone if I want to. It interests me. And that’s important — but not for the reasons you might think.

When we write about things we are interested in, it can feel at first like it’s too boring or too niche to write about. That deters a lot of people from writing their passions, as they say. It’s a brain block that prevents us from giving in to our creativity and allowing ourselves to mine inspiration from our own words.

What you may not realize is that while it may seem like a boring or niche topic to you, that’s not necessarily true or a bad thing. The reason it might seem boring is because you’ve likely studied and understand your interest at such a deep level that writing a basic how-to guide, for example, feels too simple. For you. But do you know who it isn’t going to seem simple to? An audience of readers who also want to know more about the topic you’re interested in, but might not have the depth of knowledge you do. Just because it seems surface-level to you doesn’t mean it will to the masses.

And a niche topic may only catch the attention of a small percentage of your potential readership. But that can still add up to hundreds of thousands of people. Niche is not bad. In many cases, niche is exactly what your potential audience is looking for.

There Is Always Demand For Writers In Your Niche

You’re selling yourself short if you think there’s no audience for the thing you want to write about. I built my career as an entertainment and pop culture writer off of writing about Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I didn’t know until I started doing it that people pay writers to cover topics like that. And that’s just it: You won’t know if there’s a demand for your interest until you go looking for it.

Let’s go back to my Star Wars example for a minute. Luckily, this is a mega-franchise with a very long runway that’s embedded enough into pop culture that even major publications like Variety need people to write about it. While that won’t be the case for every single interest out there, if you look hard enough, there is always someone looking to read about that interest — and that means someone is also looking for someone to write about it.

There’s nothing wrong with starting a blog about the Skywalkers (the royal family of a galaxy far, far away, if you will) and writing posts on your own time to gather clips for a future portfolio. There are websites covering just about everything. I’d dare to say no interest is too niche to demand readership.

Is It Possible to Have Too Many Interests?

Yes and no. It took Google a long time to figure out whether or not I was actually an online authority in anything because I did arguably too many different things. My Knowledge Panel now calls me a “Writer,” which aligns with enough of the things I do to come close enough to the truth.

The key to establishing yourself as an “expert” in online publishing is to write a lot — over many years — about the things that matter to you. It doesn’t matter how similar those things are (I’ve written about healthy recipes and I’ve written about Captain America being on the right side of the Civil War; these things are not related). What matters is that you write A LOT about both of these general topics. It’s quality and quantity that gains trust. If you write about one interest for six months and then stop completely to write about something else for six months, you might have a harder time than writing about both topics simultaneously for a year.

The issue that arises most isn’t that writing about many different topics hurts your online presence on the back end. What you’ll find yourself struggling with, most likely, is your focus. Some people aren’t built to write about five different things at once. It’s OK if you’re one of those people. There’s no right or wrong way to do it; what’s best for you is what will get you furthest in your writing career.

Don’t be afraid to write about what interests or matters to you most. Think of it as an opportunity to both share your knowledge with others and connect with others who share your interests and passions.

Sometimes, it’s not just about what’s going to make you fast money or what’s going to get you ranked in Google (these things are important, but not always the most urgent). Allowing yourself to build a following based on a topic you feel energized by and excited to write about will benefit you so much in the long-term.

Meg Dowell is the creator of Brain Rush, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words, and Not a Book Hoarder, celebrating books of all kinds. She is an editor, writer, book reviewer, podcaster, and photographer passionate about stories and how they get made. Learn more