Writing for the sake of writing
By Gina
@Gina145 (3949)
Johannesburg, South Africa
September 13, 2016 9:56am CST
The structure of sites like Bubblews encouraged writers to publish as much as possible without too much concern for the quality of their content.
I'm embarrassed to confess that, while at Bubblews, I once challenged myself to write 10 posts in a single day. While I managed to pull it off that day, there were certainly some junk posts among my ten. I never tried it again.
I recently joined Niume and initially time constraints meant that I wrote... NOTHING. When I finally wrote my first post during an interrupted night's sleep, I came to the sudden realisation that my writing goal going forward should be about quality, not quantity. If I've got nothing worth saying I shouldn't feel compelled to write just for the little income a junk post will generate.
Do you write for the sake of writing or do you write because you have something to say?
16 people like this
18 responses
@Mike197602 (15487)
• United Kingdom
13 Sep 16
On mylot (the only writing type/earning site I use) I only make my own discussion when I feel like it.
I've got over 20 discussion subjects written down so will be stopping my in the moment posts and concentrating on those subjects as I think they're a little better and I've not seen similar topics as yet.
Loads of people did the same at bubblews as it was a cash cow for a while and people milked it
8 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@Mike197602 I very rarely start my own discussions at myLot because I don't often have ideas I think worth discussing. I hate the fact that I did the ten post challenge at Bubblews, but thankfully I only did it once. I'm sure I could have earned a lot more there if I'd done it more often though.
3 people like this
@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
13 Sep 16
When I started at Bubb I wrote ten a day - but once I had a following and got lots of views I cut down to 2 or a day - and I din't skimp on good work either. I don't believe in doing something half-way. There was a period of tine, about 4 straight months, I was cashing in $50 every other day or at least every third day.
3 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@AbbyGreenhill I wish I'd been able to cash out that often but I suffer badly from writer's block. Many days I didn't post at all. I really admire you for being able to write ten quality posts per day, even if you only did it for a short time.
2 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@AbbyGreenhill I agree. By the time I reached my tenth post on the day I did it, traffic had slowed right down.
1 person likes this
@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
13 Sep 16
@Gina145 The thing is, I only 'though' I had to do ten, it wasn't necessary - more really is less.
2 people like this
@andriaperry (116860)
• Anniston, Alabama
13 Sep 16
I love to write, BUT I try to make sure it means something, a hard journey or something awesome to cook, with instructions or that photo that I think is awesome and I share that and where it was and what time of the year.
No I can chat here and on Face, I write to say something.
4 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@andriaperry I've seen enough of your writing to know that you would never write junk. And thanks for mentioning Niume. I think I'm going to enjoy that site.
2 people like this
@irishidid (8688)
• United States
13 Sep 16
I wrote stories on Bubblews and had a following of readers. Here, I can't do that, unfortunately.
2 people like this
@irishidid (8688)
• United States
13 Sep 16
@Gina145 Nah, I just write them and publish in a book. 
2 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@irishidid That sounds good. It's sad that you can't do it here, but there are other sites you can try, or even your own blog.
2 people like this
we could even discuss them if you'd like.
@hereandthere (45651)
• Philippines
13 Sep 16
i think at the end of the day it depends on the site, what they will allow and not allow. but,yes, sometimes, i think about being someone who just expresses, regardless of reception.
3 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@hereandthere For me what the site allows doesn't really come into it. I don't like to write meaningless things like "this is my tenth post of the day" but some people often did it.
1 person likes this
@JamesHxstatic (29242)
• Eugene, Oregon
13 Sep 16
I like to write and things to say (some better than others, naturally) seem to occur to me on a pretty much daily basis. I think the most I ever wrote on that other site was three in a day.
3 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Sep 16
@JamesHxstatic It's fine to write daily if you have something that you want to say. I often struggle for ideas though, so there were many days when I wrote nothing. I could comfortably write three on a good day though, but ten was just crazy.
2 people like this
@Morleyhunt (21737)
• Canada
14 Sep 16
Sometimes I write a junk post, just to let people know I'm still here.
2 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@Morleyhunt I look at the topics to see whether they sound interesting, but I find that the people whose names repeat really frequently rarely have anything much to say.
1 person likes this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@Morleyhunt Sometimes is fine. It's when people write ten junk posts a day that it becomes a problem.
@Morleyhunt (21737)
• Canada
14 Sep 16
@Gina145 when I look at the new discussions list, I rarely read one by the person whose name keeps repeating. I have better things to do with my time.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (21026)
• Australia
14 Sep 16
When I started writing more than ten years ago I wrote because I thought that I had something new to say, fresh ideas of my own about things I wanted to share with the world.
I have written over 3000 articles on various sites over 12 years, and to tell you the truth I still like to write at times, but I am about all written out. I seem to have nothing much that is new now inside me to come out anymore.
I have lost some of my incentive to write.
2 people like this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@innertalks 3000 articles is a lot, so I'm not surprised you feel written out right now. I'm sure new ideas will come to you eventually. Maybe interacting here will provide some inspiration too.
1 person likes this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@innertalks That's true. I wish I had time to do more of it. Maybe I'd get more ideas of my own then.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (21026)
• Australia
14 Sep 16
@Gina145 Yes, responding to posts of others can be stimulating, when we put our own opinions/ideas out there to share with others. I think we learn the most when we are open to reading varied views and ideas about things.
1 person likes this
@marguicha (215441)
• Chile
14 Sep 16
I suppose that, for many, my life is not very important. At 71, and with some ailments, I no longer climb mountains or do other prowesess. But for me, even the everyday living is important to me and I write about that. I discovered that when I was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma. Noone knew how many months or years I had left. So, from then on, every day counts.
I was happy to learn a phillipino dish today after reading a post from a friend.
What is important?
1 person likes this
@marguicha (215441)
• Chile
15 Sep 16
@Gina145 Of course there arre all kinds of people. Online and offline. I remember that here or at Bubblews (I don´t remember) some people wrote things such as Hello........ and more dots until they got the right amount of characters. Some were repeorted, but not all of them.
1 person likes this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
15 Sep 16
@marguicha I never saw it here, but it often happened at Bubblews, and sadly they weren't good at deleting content that wasn't supposed to be there. It's possible some of those people even got paid while the honest members were being cheated.
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@marguicha I'm sorry to hear about your ailments and certainly understand how you feel. If things are important to you then they're worth writing about. However I really got the feeling that some Bubblews members weren't only writing about things that mattered to them. They just wanted to make sure that they wrote their ten posts every day no matter what.
1 person likes this
@bagarad (14283)
• Paso Robles, California
1 Oct 16
I try to have something to write or share (if a photo) that would interest me if someone else wrote it. I tend to relax a bit on Niume, but I still want to post quality. Quality posts get more hype, become more visible, and in the end get more views, I think.
1 person likes this
@bagarad (14283)
• Paso Robles, California
1 Oct 16
@Gina145 What worries me is the many unattributed photos I see there with only a general link back to a source site that may also be the source of the text. I refuse to hype such posts, even if they may be featured. I stick with following people I know or am convinced are posting only their own work or giving proper credit for images.
1 person likes this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
1 Oct 16
@bagarad I really haven't spent much time there yet but I was interested to see that some posts link to content elsewhere. It makes me wonder whether Niume would be a suitable place to promote my blog. I really don't want to break any rules and I'm still confused by what's allowed there.
Unattributed photos are a concern on most sites, which is why I prefer sites where using photos is optional. I don't like being forced to use other people's photos if I don't have a suitable one that I took myself, but on some sites I'm forced to do it. I was very nervous about getting the attribution right on my first Niume post.
1 person likes this
@Bluedoll (16774)
• Canada
14 Sep 16
I see this question from two different perspectives.
1) writing in general
2) writing to a site like Bubblews
I found that I was influenced by many posts on Bubblews that were trying to influence other members to write better posts with more quality. I tried that and found I got less rewards than those that could "network" themselves. Many could do it successfully without much quality. In the end after all my effort I got paid nothing, zip, zero.
1 person likes this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@Bluedoll For the most part while I was at Bubblews I only wrote what I wanted to write. It didn't please everyone and a lot of people earned much more than I did. Then again in the end a lot of them were cheated out of a lot more money than I was too. I'm sorry you never got paid.
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
14 Sep 16
@JudyEv That's not really what I meant. I meant the kind of junk some people wrote at Bubblews about what they had for breakfast, lunch or supper, or reports of every payment they received etc. If you're looking for something worthwhile to say that's fine.
1 person likes this
@Gina145 (3949)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
15 Sep 16
@JudyEv I've never had as much time for these sites as some people do, so I'm usually quite selective about what posts I read. That's why I never earned a fraction of what other people did at Bubblews, and why I don't get paid every month at myLot.
1 person likes this
