Break Through Writer’s Block
Do You Really Need a Niche?
A lightbulb came on for me this morning, as I drank my second coffee and did my usual online search for voiceover auditions: I don’t need a niche.
I had been wondering what to write about and considered the fact that I now worked from home, hadn’t seen many people lately apart from on Zoom and had been focusing on my self employment for the past eighteen months.
What had I got to share? Would you love what I wrote?
This self-imposed hurdle annoyed the heck out of me, since I knew I had so much to write about but had told myself that if it wasn’t ‘niche’ enough you wouldn’t like it. It was this idea of a niche that bothered me - you see, I felt like I had ‘niches’ all over the place.
By mid morning I could tell I was close to figuring it out, so I took some time out in the garden to soak up the sunshine and think for a while. Up until I set up my business, I was a deputy head of year for fourteen years - full of advice and qualification to support and guide families through their various social or familial struggles.
I loved the job, the people and the relief that I saw in the faces of students and parents once their problems had been solved. I still occasionally hear a shout of “Mrs Cooper!” when I’m out and it’s lovely to hear that their kids are doing well at college, work or simply, life.
In my twenties and thirties, I sold chicken to Dewhurst butchers around the country, spectacles in Oxfordshire, got married and divorced, became a mother, found new jobs for seekers in Nottinghamshire, worked in a bank, sold equestrian equipment to national horse breeders, took my daughter travelling around Cambodia & Thailand, fixed up a couple of houses and had so many more adventures.
I have had a couple of profound romances and profound heartbreaks which would win Oscars if they were made into films, with impromptu flights to Paris and Marrakech, horse riding in Plitvice, songs written for me, mountainside picnics - I didn’t write about it. I could have written so much on being a single parent, working three jobs and ‘finding your strength’ - but I didn’t have the time. I should have written a travel blog around Southeast Asia, although it didn’t occur to me at the time - rather, we ‘enjoyed the glorious moments’ and treasured the connections we made with the wonderfully welcoming people there.
This morning I asked myself: “What do you mean you have nothing to write?!”
Throughout my life I’ve been more of a ‘listener’; that person to whom people come for advice, to offload, to confide in. I never really analysed or thought about it until my daughter grew into that type of person too - the one her friends trusted the most to listen without judgement and to give good advice when asked.
I am frequently surprised at how similar she is to me, but better - as though the evolution of just one generation has made her like her mother but a much more advanced version. I am constantly grateful that my own parents raised me with such love and respect that I have been able to do the same for my own child. Speaking of ‘advanced versions’, she occasionally tunes into my thoughts and answers me as though she has heard what I was thinking. I put that down to our ‘close mother/daughter bond’, trying to analyse it scientifically, but at times it’s still slightly unnerving!
We all have at least a few magical life stories to tell, despite the fact that they would fit neither a niche nor under a ‘Top 5…’ title. Sometimes however, reading someone else’s story evokes emotions and memories of our own and slipping on someone else’s shoes for a while can give us an insight into how an adventurer, mother, woman, lover thinks.
We don’t always look for tips, tricks, facts or short cuts - sometimes, there’s no need for a niche, just a glimpse of someone else’s story.
