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Mustard Seed of Niche

Still writing this way. If you want a life update, I did very convoluted update post here. But I wanted to share this Medium post I wrote. Hope get something out of it.

Cheers!

Mustard Seed of Niche


And no, I’m not religious. While Christianity is deep seeded within American society, I do not claim any religion as my own. I’m more of a “Commune with Nature” kind of guy.

Like most new writers, I’m still discovering what my niche is. I have many interest. Sometimes I can be flighty. But I’m recognizing what has stuck around all my life and have an urge to add more energy, time and resources into those things. One of the things has been writing.

Like a lot of us, writing has been a form of expression. A way to communicate to others ideas, concepts and narratives. And in the process of trying to convey my own ideas, concepts and narratives, I realized that I was just writing to see what stuck. The intent was to get read by as many people as possible.

I’m realizing now that writing to just get read will have you writing a lot about nothing. Or posts that have no connection to one another. Where is the person? Who or what do I care about? Do I see my human self? And I’m not saying all writing has to be some self divulging diatribe. But what I am saying is that maybe writing about office culture isn’t your best move if you hate the office life.

I’m just sayin’.

But when it comes to the “mustard seed of faith” biblical imagery, it’s recognized as having even just a small belief in an all powerful entity. The driving force of life. That “Thing”.

So this thought bubble all came about from the How to Discover Your Writing Niche workshop by Medium. The related article proposes exercises to help writers discover their own personal niche. As I was writing out the responses to each numbered question, I began to realize that finding your niche is really discovering what it is that you personally have faith in. And honestly, this was harder than I thought. I’m still working it out.

To be transparent, I skipped the first question of “What are your writing goals?” To make a living? I don’t know. Who am I to say I have anything more worthwhile to say than the next person?

The second question really got me thinking. What would my 30 minute TED talk consist of? While it not the most coherent thing, it would consist of Black people in space, queer people in space, poor people in space. It would be discussions of queer and black magic in nooked nature spaces. Social constructs and how we build up and tear them apart. It may even segue into asking whys and hows of Black Sci-fi and its intersections with queer identity. Sprinkle in some pop culture references for full picture understanding and that would be my thing. Not the entire thing, but a lot more than I realized before the exercise.

And as I ran through questions of “What is realistic?” and “What do you enjoy?”, I began to think these were more philosophical questions. What may be real to me may not seem or be real to others. What do I want to make real to others?

And what is faith but what we individually believe in? Faith is having a small belief in something being true or real. And when we believe it to be true, even just a little bit, we figure out ways to live out these truths. You may have faith in a healthy lifestyle and figure out a way to maintain that by making time for meal prep and an exercise routine. Or you may have faith in keeping your sanity so you take the long overdue time off to recoup.

What to gain from this? Maybe the point is when you find your niche, your thing, a piece of your faith is lit up. It sparks and ignites drive and motivation. Finding your niche also helps you find what you believe in, what you want in life because it’s always been there. The fuzzy feelings of watching K-dramas. The years of skills in quilt making. You already believe in these things because you take part in them in ways others may not see reason to. And now we have the opportunity, as the creator, to show reason.

We all contemplate our own niches in the creative world. Or try to find new ones because the old niches isn’t quite big enough. Instead of berating yourself for not having it yet, ask yourself, “What do I have faith in, even just a mustard seeds worth?”

Keep the faith homies.


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