A Little Story
Once upon a time, there was a young warrior. It had been a year since he had posted on his blog for the first time. The year had begun very ambitiously, with uploading something every week. However, it soon felt as if he was prioritizing quantity over quality. So he started to put more effort into these posts, which meant they also took more time.
Posting less frequently went pretty well, until the warrior went on some lifechanging travels to Kenya and Peru. On these travels, he didn’t take the time to write specifically for his blog but tried to write down as much as possible about his experience. This was cool, but it meant that he didn’t post anything for a long time. These travels had broken his flow and he missed working on his blog posts.
Once back, he worked again on the blog, but he had lost momentum. Although he still posted once in a while, he felt like he could have done more. He blamed it mostly on his studies.
The year ended, and the blog was almost 1 year old. He decided to make a book out of his blog and bought it. When it arrived, he didn’t start reading it directly, afraid of how bad the first posts were. Some days later, he had collected the required courage and started reading. It was not as bad as he had thought. While reading it, he remembered why he had written it in the first place, he had written it for himself, and he liked it.
My First Book
If you were looking forward to buying the book, I will have to disappoint you. This book is not for sale. I’ve written a book, but I’ve not published one.
Why did I go to pixxibook.com and ordered a (rather expensive) hard copy of my blog? Well, as some of you might know, a dream of mine is to write a book and get it published. This is a project that requires a vast amount of time, thus it is important to stay motivated throughout the whole process.
How can I stay motivated? The visualized progress of slow steady growth is one of the biggest motivations that exists. Techniques such as the rubber band technique are very good at this, although nothing can beat the feeling of holding a year’s worth of your own writing in your hands.
During the first weeks after I received the book, I didn’t dare to open it. I hadn’t reread my blog posts a lot, so I was convinced that they were shitty, especially the early ones. When I ultimately conquered my fear and read the book, I realized that they were not as shitty as I had imagined them. I found my momentum again. Which I had lost beforehand.
What I learned in the previous year
I’m 100% sure that the previous year was the year in which I learned the most. I learned to write daily, read daily, talk to strangers, and organize my thoughts with the help of notebooks and meditation. Additionally, I learned to speak Spanish, play the charango, pronounce a rolling R, and perform a handstand. I made deep bonds with friends, family and people who I would never meet again. A lot of these things I owe to the books I’ve read. In 2022, I read 20 books, which was way less compared to the year before (38). This might sound weird for a person who calls his blog The Read More Warrior. However, the reason for this is that I’ve shifted my focus from quantity to quality.
During this year, there are also some things I’ve learned about myself:
- I like to experiment a lot
- Although I don’t see how I will use my study of bioscience engineering, I’m very grateful for having done it
- The core of this blog is not reading more books, but reading better books, enjoying them more and absorbing them better.
- I LOVE WRITING!
- I write in the first place for myself.
I would like to go a bit deeper into the last two.
First, why do I love writing? Well, mainly for three reasons. Firstly, it forces me to organize my thoughts. Secondly, it requires me to think more deeply and make connections. Lastly, I am better able to bring my ideas into the world because I have organized my thoughts and have thought more deeply about them. Ultimately, I am also more confident when I’m speaking about these ideas.
Secondly, why do I write in the first place for myself? The previous paragraph already forms part of the answer to this question. Moreover, I use the “Your Turn” at the end of my blog posts also for holding myself accountable for doing them. However, this doesn’t explain why I share these thoughts online, and I am planning on doing it even more in the future (as we’ll see in the next paragraph). The reason is that in that way I can receive more feedback and hone my writing skill. That my writings might also help other people, is also very nice.
A Way Forward: Sharing
I have been thinking a lot about to what extent I want to share this blog with the world. Although the first book blog post is about sharing your work with the world, I have only shared this blog with some family members and friends. For other people, this blog is virtually non-existent, because it is so poorly SEO-optimized and there are no social media accounts linked to this blog.
This means that the majority of the people I know, don’t even have the slightest sense of knowing that I write. Most of them know me as a bioscience engineering student. However, in reality, I feel more like a writer than a bioscience engineer. This makes me often wonder, what if everybody knew that I want to become a writer? First, negative thoughts like “they would make fun of me” or “they would call it a waste of money and potential” spawn in my mind. On the other hand, the majority of the feedback from the little group of people I have shared this blog with was positive. Maybe that is because they don’t want to hurt my feelings. Nevertheless, it makes me wonder what would happen if I share it with more people. Would I receive more interesting recommendations? Would I have more profound conversations? Would I be helped by more people? Would I help more people?
Extra: The Best of the Previous Year
The 5 best books I’ve read until now:
- Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport
- The Power of Strangers – Joe Keohane
- You’re not listening – Kate Murphy
- Atomic Habits – James Clear
- Essentialism – Greg McKeown
The 5 best non-book related posts
The 5 drawings I love the most:
Your Turn
Get in touch with me via the contact form. Let me know which post you liked the most. Book recommendations are also very welcome!
