Newsletter #10 Regaining Motivation, Getting Back on Track
The writing competition unexpectedly fueled my motivation for writing
Hello from the 10th issue of this newsletter, it feels great to be able to say that!
I can’t believe we’re approaching the end of summer. I started this newsletter in June, with all the free time summer bestowed on me. Now we’re at the end of August!
With this newsletter, you got to see a glimpse of my summer days, where I went, what I read, what I wrote, and sometimes even what I watched and listened to. You got to ponder with me on ideas, and issues that come to affect all of us.
Now I plan to develop and flourish this newsletter even more. I’m still trying to figure out details like its structure and length through experimenting, so it’s possible for you to see format changes in different issues.
I also would love to hear your feedback if you have any, about what more would you like to see on this newsletter, about the format, topics, or anything else! I would love to hear your ideas.
What I wrote this week
In last week’s newsletter, I couldn’t give you any fresh articles. This week I have 4!
Well 2 of them were actually my #MediumWritersChallenge entries. And the other 2 were drafted before, I just altered them a little and published them. I’m leaving you with the articles:
The Joys and Troubles of Wanting To Become Everything
This was my first entry to the writing competition, and it was an entry for the category “work”. I’m not kidding you when I tell you that I sat through this article like 50 times.
I poured in many ideas, I trimmed it and shaped it like a mad man, and I edited it meticulously.
As a result, yielded a piece I’m really proud of. In this personal essay, you can find my struggles with defining what work meant for me and coming to some sort of conclusion about it.
You can witness my psychological battles throughout the years from the perspective of this issue.
I can sense the improvement in my writing when I read this piece, and it was all thanks to preparing for this fun challenge Medium gave us. I’m thankful for it.
Even if it’s always unlikely to be the winner of these competitions, I’m content with just producing these essays and not winning anything, as I believe the challenge itself took me to a different level in writing.
Changing My Physical Space Never Meant Leaving the Same Spot
And this was my entry for the topic “space”. I, unfortunately, couldn’t write about the topics of “reentry” and “death” as I poured all my energy into these 2 essays, especially the above essay about work.
But I also wanted to write about the space topic as Natalie Portman is one of the judges and there’s a possibility that she will read my work :)
And I didn’t have many ideas in my mind about the topics of reentry and death, to begin with.
Anyways, this was about the changing spaces in my life, and how those frequent changes affected who I’d become and the trajectory of my life.
I gave a glimpse of my life story, but I don’t want to reveal too much about it here, you need to read it!
6 Psychological Manipulation Techniques People Use To Persuade You
This one is on social psychology. As a psychology student, I learned about these manipulation techniques in my social psychology classes and found them really exciting.
These techniques are used in ads where you stumble upon everywhere, on online or tv or billboards, they are commonly used by salespeople, and even have widespread usage in our day-to-day conversations with anyone.
Knowing about these psychological manipulation techniques can make you aware of when they are used on you and make you give more effective decisions!
This Is My 100th Post Here, but I Feel More Lost Than Ever
As the title gives you a glimpse, this was my 100th post on Medium! Even though I’ve been on Medium for a year and roughly 3 months, I was newly able to reach this milestone.
Everyone talks about the importance of having written and published 100 articles online, to reach a certain level of mastery and make real money from your writing.
100 articles also apparently give you a direction in your writing career and make you more clear on what you want to write about the most.
Even if I believe I improved significantly in this craft after that 100 articles, I still am confused about my future in writing and 100 articles didn’t give me that certainty everyone was talking about.
In this article, I’m talking about this issue and the hackneyed advice about reaching the 100 article mark.
What I’m reading? Well, this past week, to compose my competition essays, I read a lot of personal essays and articles. Most of them I read from Medium and New Yorker. I really like the personal essays published on Medium’s in-house publication Human Parts.
Reading these essays formed some ideas in my head about how to tell a story, create a narrative, use poignant words and expressions, and all that jazz.
I also read a lot of Susan Orlean’s work. She’s a staff writer for the New Yorker who also writes on Medium! You can check out her profile for amazing writing tips and her New Yorker articles to get a gist of how to structure artful essays.
If you wish to get better at your personal essay writing skills, I’d highly recommend checking out these resources and reading and analyzing them religiously.
And to keep you updated with my book reading, I’m still continuing to read Thinking Fast and Slow, it’s a dense book so I don’t expect to finish it too quickly anyways.
I instead try to absorb the information the book hands so generously, without rushing to finish it.
I also ordered 3 books online and wait for them to be delivered. I ordered 2 novels, 1 non-fiction. All of them are in English.
I made an agreement with myself that I’ll read books in English if they were written by a writer whose native language is English, instead of reading these books’ translations in my own language. That way I believe I can improve my English even more!
That’s it for this week. Oh also, if you follow me here but not on Medium, and wish to be a Medium reader, you can use my referral link to become a Medium member.
Wishing you an amazing rest of your week!