Why I Joined The Blogging Team | by Jay Mitchell

When looking through the Multiverse Community pages, articles were the bits I found the most useful. All the articles had come from apprentices, and as an aspiring writer, I began to wonder how to get some of my ideas there. 

In The Beginning
I had always turned to writing but never really for public consumption. I had loads of articles about what I enjoyed doing, and many more rants at the news that annoyed me or political statements that I had to respond to. None of them was ever even sent for publication anywhere- they were my brain pouring out onto paper. So the idea of having someone critique my writing was a little nerve-racking. After a few decades of convincing myself that it was good enough, here was the way to prove it. Would I be able to write on demand, rather than just when the whim took me? Could I write things that people actually wanted to read? There was only one way to find out and the worst that could happen was my writing wouldn’t be published, and that was already where I was!!

The scope of topics is immense, so there was definitely no need to worry about subjects to write about. The initial meeting of new writers put me at ease- none of us were professional authors, and being published was new for us all. I was lucky enough to have already sent one piece for the Community Team- an article I wrote about starting an apprenticeship in my 40s. The positive feedback on that piece did wonders for my confidence, and now I was raring to go.

And So It Began
My first piece for the Blogging Team was about getting a diagnosis of ADHD later in life, and again there was a positive reaction from the apprenticeship community. I’m still surprised, both by the positive reaction and how much it has made a difference to me. Since starting on the Blogging team, my writing has improved, and a lot of this is down to the confidence gained from responses from you, the reader.

There is so much support along the way too. Of course, the articles are edited, with suggestions on how to improve the readability and impact of the piece. Sometimes it’s just changing the odd word to help the flow of the reading, and sometimes there are suggestions for an extra paragraph to explain properly- whatever it is that helps. Carrying these suggestions forwards and re-reading an article through the eyes of the editor made a huge difference. I started thinking of what suggestions the editor is likely to make and making the changes there and then. The deadlines have helped me too, I have way too many bits of writing that I’ve promised myself to pick up later! When the reminder email drops, it’s a helpful push to actually finish the article that has been started several times! 

Going Further
Further opportunities are coming up as a result of writing for the Blogging team too. Multiverse’s Marketing team made contact, asking to use my articles in external publications, which could only boost my confidence. After almost 40 years of writing for myself, the Community Blogging Team has given me both the opportunity and the confidence to put my articles out there for other people to read, and it feels better than I could have imagined. 
So I definitely want to say thank you to the Community Blogging Team, but another thank you to you, for reading this. If you are interested in writing, I cannot recommend the Community Blogging Team enough. Support, pointers, advice and huge amounts of satisfaction await you!

Jay Mitchell is a Data Literacy/Data & Insights for Business Decisions apprentice at Direct Line Group and is writing for the Apprentice Lens as part of the Blogging Team. Here is a little more about him:

"I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years into my 40s, which probably explains the numerous unfinished projects I seem to be surrounded by. I enjoy drawing on my own personal experience for my articles, with a view that any tips are meant as “You could do this” rather than “You should do this!"