What’s The Main Focus For Your Writing? Results Of Reader Survey

June 4, 2008 · by Joanna Paterson · in

I ran a reader survey here last week as part of this month’s writing with purpose theme.

There was just one question: what’s the main focus for your writing? Either the writing you’re doing, or the writing you want to be doing.

There were 8 prompts you could choose from, or “other” (to define your own). The prompts were 1. blog writing 2. writing to promote my business 3. non-fiction writing 4. fiction 5. poetry 6. writing for self-expression 7. business writing 8. academic writing / student essays.

Here are the results from the 58 readers who took part in the survey:

Survey Findings

Survey Findings

Survey Findings

34% Blog writing (20 readers)

17% Fiction (10 readers)

14% Self expression (8 readers)

9% Business writing (5 readers)

9% Other (see below) (5 readers)

7% Non-fiction writing (4 readers)

3% Poetry (2 readers)

3% Academic / student essays (2 readers)

3 % Writing to promote my business (2 readers)

The ‘others’ included: blog posts, resumes and articles; technical writing; writing to help you think and see more clearly; writing about local politics; and an honest ‘not much focus’!

Some people added that they would have liked to have ticked more than one box (me too), or that they had secondary points of focus like academic writing or travel writing.

What I Learned From The Survey

I guess the thing that surprised me most from the survey was how many of you are focused on fiction writing… because I don’t ‘cover’ fiction here in any shape or form…

But when I mentioned this to my blogging friend Amy Palko she pointed out that writing fiction perhaps takes more of a leap of faith, more confidence, more determination to write with purpose, to come boldly to the page, to fire up your words like the fire breathing writing dragon that you are. And that the words I’m penning here might be helping you to do just that. (I hope so.)

The other main point for me is the emphasis on blog writing. I think maybe I should relax a bit more about this one – I try not to write too much about blogging (as there are so many other blogs doing just that) but if it’s so much part of what brings us together here perhaps I’m limiting myself unnecessarily. Plus learning how to blog with confidence has so many spill over benefits for other forms of writing, don’t you think?

The Power Of Questions

The other thing I learned was about the power of questions. (I haven’t forgotten the promise to write some posts on how to frame powerful questions – next week I hope.)

The response in the comment box was fascinating. People talked about hints, prompts and questions that were helping them to get total clarity on their writing purpose (and writing dreams); how their answer to the question had got them thinking because it wasn’t what they thought the answer “should” be; how they’d realised they’d lost focus but that thinking through their purpose – the bigger picture of what they were trying to do – had helped them get things back into view.

I’ve also had some feedback in the week that followed about what you’ve done with that learning: getting back into the writing groove again, or changing the focus for one writing outlet to create more room for another.

Of course this is what good coaching questions are supposed to lead to… reflection, realisation, energy, action… but I wasn’t expecting it on the back of this first experimental survey!

A good reminder to myself to take care, always, with my own words and to remember how much weight my words – and your words – can carry.

Thanks And One More Question

Thanks very much to everyone who took part and helped me to learn more about all of you.

The last question is this:

What strikes you most from the survey findings? Is it a pattern that reflects what you were expecting… or what you knew of the people you’ve met here?

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