30 days ago, I signed up for Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole's cohort-based course, Ship 30 for 30.

In that time, I wrote & published 30 Atomic Essays, learned the fundamentals of Digital Writing, made friends, and started gaining clarity over what my niche might be. It has been a very rewarding (and challenging) journey, and I am more excited than ever to keep writing online.

Here are the 3 biggest things writing & publishing consistently every day for 30 days taught me:

1. Planning ahead makes writing 10x easier

On the days when I spent time finding a topic beforehand, even when I had to write late at night, I found it easier. This just reinforces to me what I've thought about fiction writing: worldbuilding makes everything so much easier because you'll never start with a truly blank page.

2. Engaging is key

I noticed very quickly that on days when I didn't engage with other people's essays, my own engagement metrics would go down the following day. Ship 30 is heavily reliant on participants engaging with each other at first, and it does work. The important thing to remember is that to grow beyond the cohort, you have to engage heavily with people who write on similar topics.

3. There is so much more to learn about applying these skills to fiction

I am a fantasy writer at heart, and I wanted to use these 30 days to find a way to do more with my stories. Atomic essays are great for flash fiction, but I have yet to figure out how they will play a part in longer stories. I look forward to exploring how to bring more worldbuilding into my future posts.

If you have been thinking about getting started writing online, too, let me know. I'm happy to share more about the experience and what I learned.