100 Followers Milestone

What I learned so far and why I kept my writing a secret

I hit 100+ followers! Thank you all who are supporting me from the start, whether by clapping, responding, or simply reading my posts — I appreciate you all.

This milestone marks a great start to my words’ venture into the world and beyond.

And my success is not but through Allah, upon Him I rely, and to Him I return. (Qur’an, 11:88)

Now I know I haven't been consistent, taking weeks or months-long breaks between pieces (due to prioritizing school mainly). However, I still get pulled into writing in my spare time and, with each story I published, it kept growing in a way I’ve never seen before.

I mentioned in my first story how I tried a few passion projects, without much success. I rambled on about trying to find my place in the world — classic teenager style. How I wasn’t sure what I should pursue.

Yet this feels right.

It’s like I found another piece to the puzzle. I’m even more overjoyed to see how many people resonated with my stories.

One part of the success I figured, something I learned from my past mistakes, is not telling anyone about it in the beginning.

That means no mentioning it to friends or family, no posting on Instagram (or “soft-launching” it as a link in my bio lol), and no sharing my articles with them either. Until now that is.

But why?

It can seem like an odd choice at first. Especially when you are passionate about something, how can you keep it to yourself? Don’t you just want to scream it off the rooftops for anyone and everyone to know?

Well yeah, that’s the problem.

At least for me, whenever I let people know about my projects, I put myself in a weird position. I often worried too much about what they thought, if they were keeping up with it, and if they saw me doing badly.

Whenever I procrastinated on the next step, these negative thoughts would paralyze me even more. To the point that I abandoned those projects completely.

So I swung the pendulum and decided, nope, let’s give it my best shot and see how it goes first. I promised myself to tell people IRL only when I hit a milestone and gain some kind of momentum.

And so I did! Other than my sister whom I share a room with, no one knew about my new writing gig and I worked on it in keen silence.

Not to mention, I find it endearing as I know most of my audience is authentic to my work, unlike when I made my friends and family the 10 subscribers on my last Youtube channel. Love them, but I’d rather do this instead.

So, what’s next?

Since I’m still experimenting, I do have a unique array of topics/genres I want to write on. This includes:

• Psychology
• Productivity
• Spirituality/Islam
• Linguistics
• Personal essays
• Cultural/Social issues
• Poetry

One of them that I’m especially excited about is poetry. I loved expressing myself in rhythm and rhyme. I’m still quite new to it but received overwhelming support. I hope to not disappoint in my next poems.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to new aspiring writers: Rain, Ipsita Parasar, Manideepa, and Mishtyranglani. It all started on a Discord server ;) Another prominent Gen-Z writer Supritha Kamalanathan, thank you for the positivity you bring here!

A writer to highlight is The West Guardian, who writes about potent human rights issues like the Rohingya crisis and apartheid in Palestine. Sadly such cases do not always get enough attention and coverage it deserves.

I’ll never forget Natasha MH and Fadilah for their kindness and inspiration as well!

Finally, I want to thank the readers again for the immense support, including the family and friends I eventually broke the news to. Surprise!

Don’t forget, you can clap up to 50 times and follow for more!