What Is the Most DIFFICULT Topic You Have Ever Written About?

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   angryelfposted 11 years ago

   All of us, as writers, have put together some difficult pieces. What was the most difficult piece you've ever written? I would say that mine would have been regarding security of VPS's. I want to see what kind of crazy topics y'all have had the courage to dive into!

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      One was a hub on a terrible addiction as a side effect of a prescription drug.  Difficult because a member of my family had nearly ruined her life from the addiction and it was drawn from her experiences.  Extremely uncomfortable to speak to her about, both painful and embarrassing (although it should not have been embarrassing - it was a strange and almost unknown addiction to gambling)
      
      The other, believe it or not, was a hub on the origins of Xmas.  Research was almost impossible because every article looked at seemed to have an axe to grind.  The emotional baggage from the religious aspect was incredible and it was difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

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         angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Wilderness, both of those are completely understandable! And when you mentioned prescription drug, you brought about a great new idea for a hub. A prescription vaccine I had, which caused a very serious health condition for myself; which will severely hinder a future family (isn't it sad what the FDA approves?!) As for Xmas, it might be a stab in the dark... but I thought it originated within Europe, when orphans were given clothes and other necessities by an unknown individual. I can't remember where I read it or if I'm even right, but I definitely see how the origins were difficult to write about. Considering that Christmas seems to be a current holiday that originated from religion, but transformed through the selfless act of giving, there's many different paths it can take!

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            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            You're probably remembering tales about St. Nicholas, around 280 AD I think, which is probably where the story of Santa originated, with many changes through the decades).
            
            But that's not the origin of Christmas itself; a story of Santa is NOT about Christmas.  Christ's Mass did not even include Santa.

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               someonewhoknowsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               "Santa Claus" is Alphanumerically speaking one of the word combinations that adds up to 666 using the number 6 for the letter "A" and adding 6 to each letter following it  from A through to z .
               Example : A = 6,
                                B = 12,
                                C = 18,  ETC....
               
               S  - 114
               A  -     6
               N  -    84
               T  -  120
               A  -      6
               
               C  -    18
               L  -     72
               A  -       6
               U  -    126
               S  -    114

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                  susi10posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Wow, cool discovery! I never thought of that

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      mts1098posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      for me it was the cancer of my sister but I had to tell the story of what happened...

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2. 86

   WryLiltposted 11 years ago

   Stainless Steel Bolts. Boooooring!

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Oh no! hahaaha sadly enough I could probably write 3,000 words on them XD Creativity is awesome!

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3. 62

   Lisa HWposted 11 years ago

   I have a handful of them, and I haven't written about any of them yet (because they're too difficult    ).  In all seriousness, I don't know where to begin or how to approach them or what I'll do with them, whether I'll combine some of them, where I'll publish/try to get them published, etc. etc.
   
   Sometimes I think it's just part of the incubation process.  At other times, I'm pretty sure they're mostly done with incubation and more a matter of not knowing how to take them out of the incubator.  So in the meantime (or forever, as far as I can guess) I write stuff that's not difficult to write.   

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Well Lisa, you could always sell them! There's many places to do that; especially if you know they're not common. No matter what though, there is tons of research available- it's just a matter of sitting down and throwing it together Even the most difficult topics come along once you have the introduction written!

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   Maricarmjoloposted 11 years ago

   so far, I humbly say that I haven't had a difficulty in one of my hubs. Maybe because, I am still starting and I only have 8 hubs as of the moment. Second, I always choose topics which are very familiar to me.

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's definitely a good rule of thumb. I started out with hardly any experience as a freelance writer for LSI content; it was challenging until I figured out you only have to get the creativity churning. What, when, why, how, and where are my favorite places to start.

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5. 68

   Pearldiverposted 11 years ago

   I would have to say that for me, it has been:
   Death
   - An extremely hard topic to write well in the firsthand.
   Even vastly harder to do so, in pulsating poetry written from the heart!

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Poetry is a challenge! But it was the first type of writing I took to. Started when I was about 11 or 12. But I've not written about death; kudos on that achievement!

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6. 80

   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   An asphalt machine - this was long before HP.  I wrote for the highway department, and that particular topic was boring on one level and difficult to translate for the average reader on another.  Highway construction in general was extremely technical and dry.  On this site, perhaps some AP hubs I was assigned would be more difficult.  We had to write what they assigned us, and some titles were more difficult (boring, hard to research, difficult to get facts) than others.

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Oh yes, just like freelance writing. I definitely understand where you are coming from!!! I've written so many technical & boring pieces it's in no way funny. I would dread writing at times. But as you can see on my profile, it has been coming easy when I choose what to write about

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   Beth37posted 11 years ago

   Mine was my statistics hub. A lot of research, which I did not find enjoyable. Too much like work. I was really pleased with the hub though.

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Eek! Statistics are in NO WAY fun. I'm going to have to go check it out!

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8. 88

   Stacie Lposted 11 years ago

   I think the most difficult topic on HP was the one about forgiveness. It was still a sore subject but writing about it provided some healing.

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      OH yes! These are the kinds of things that open our minds to the world. It's all about understanding; if we can understand something, we can have compassion. I'm not sure what made it so sore for you, but that makes it all the more a great personal achievement. I'm glad it helped you through, I find writing to be so incredibly therapeutic.

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9. 78

   Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

   Search engine optimization.
   
   It's boring and technical, and you have to explain it for J. Q. Public.
   
   It's an over-saturated topic: everyone and their dog's tick has written about it already, so the chances of anyone finding what I have to say on the subject are slim to none.
   
   There's so much misinformation on the topic out there that one can do years of research and study, yet still be led astray by bad advice or "common wisdom" in the industry which is dead wrong.
   
   Seach engines keep changing. This is the killer for me; I need to go back and rewrite some old articles.
   
   It's hard to write briefly on the subject and still be useful.
   
   And at its root, it's an art, like public speaking or sign design or poetry. These are things that can't be done via a checklist; they require finesse, psychology, an understanding of the intended audience. It's harder to teach an art than a recipe.

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      Will Apseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Paul is looking for SEO input over on 'QAP update'. I did my best but what do I know about that stuff?
      
      Anyway, glad to see you are still around.

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      angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, it really is. trying to understand the technicalities can be difficult. But truly wonderful writers never have to overly concern themselves with the SEO issue. As long as the keyword is good, the research is done, it's a huge chunk of content & media rich, and there's some social media links/articles linking (including tiers).... well it's not that difficult. One thing will NEVER EVER change: Google wants REAL, ORIGINAL content that is rich and long. These big slaps by Google are a GOOD thing. They are removing the competition for the true writers. By the way guys, all those amazon links are very very bad! Google hates affiliates; even if they are sparse and surrounded by good content. It must be a super relevant product (check out my finding a lost cat article to see JUST how relevant). Everyone makes it TOO difficult. HP does all the work for the most part. You just need inbound links for the keyword + SM. Viola! Don't try to compete for high comp keywords.

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10. 85

    rebekahELLEposted 11 years ago

    And you just gave us possibly the most important aspect of SEO, at least from the experts I've read.
    
    I write what I know or love, so I haven't had a difficult topic.  The book that is still waiting to be written will be my hardest topic. I suppose that's why it's still unwritten.

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       angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       SEO is kind of tricky, but there's basic practices that will ALWAYS be good to follow. When one over analyzes it, it becomes difficult. We are on Hubpages; they've done most of the work for us. All that's really necessary is a few back links in the form of smaller articles, a few shares on almost every social networking site, and some positive review from other writers. It's not too bad, once I've gotten 30 hubs up, I'm going to go into backlinking for them. One thing at a time; but the content needs to be somewhat aged. And keywords well researched.

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          angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I'm reaching around 70 views per day, have already earned $0.14. I will probably begin a journey hub for everyone here, and for those who are TRULY passionate about the art of writing and earning a living from it (I've already accomplished this!) can follow me and be prepared for when I dish out the good stuff. I'm just NOT going to get ahead of myself yet, because that is the #1 way to set up for failure. I anticipate earning at least $50 a day from hubpages. And I WILL do it. That's a promise! And once I make it... I'll not hesitate to share.

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             Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

             Once you figure out that one, I want to read the hub. I think everyone will.

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                angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                Well with the few hubs I have, I've made $0.17 in a day- good start, as I'm looking to expand to ~300 hubs with most being low comp keywords with 600-10,000 searches per day. I'm fine tuning my KW research skills; I've already successfully hit page 1 for a handful of KW's with not only this site, but personal blogs and websites with virtually no SEO. With a tiny bit of elbow grease I'll get there.  I have the 300 hub goal set for the end of the year. I  can write some awesome stuff even with odd keywords. As long as I reach my 300 hub goal I'm happy- not SO worried about the earnings. I need them to age well before I add on some work. Are we allowed to say what our CPM is here? It's not a shabby number, but I swore I seen someone say it's a bad idea to post it.

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11. 76

    Barbara Kayposted 11 years ago

    The hardest for me was about the differences between Plasma and LCD TVs. I've removed the hub because it got very little traffic. You could tell the hub was a challenge for me and I didn't enjoy doing it.

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       angryelfposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I can see how that's difficult, and unfortunately definitely low traffic; this was a huge thing quite a few years ago, but the market definitely saturated. What is your biggest hobby, Barbera? I'd be happy to find an incredible keyword for you to use. I see that you have many hubs regarding horticulture. If you're up for one, just let me know it'll only take me 5-10 minutes to find a great one.

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12. 83

    peachpurpleposted 11 years ago

    i still have a handful of hubs that are hard for me to think of what to write. The hub titles were created but nothing inside the hubs, just pictures. How to have a son, and some health issues are not easy for me. I don't  want to simple copy and paste the article from wikipedia. Hope to write out with my own words.

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13. 66

    Astra Nomikposted 11 years ago

    Writing about coming out as lesbian is pretty hard to do. I did that and somehow I am still alive and writing poetry and a blog ... and hopefully a book soon. Putting words about love (or whatever) out in the world and not being sure what people will say about it... that is a universal fear of many writers ....

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    writingloverposted 11 years ago

    My most difficult topic was writing about my experiences with childhood abuse. I didn't want to relive the pain, the grief, the fear, and the guilt that I felt as a child. However, it had to be written.

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       Beth37posted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I would like to read that hub sometime, WL. If you don't mind me asking, what is the name of it?

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    Jo_Goldsmith11posted 11 years ago

    I have been here now for a little over 2 years. I just hit my 2 year mark. Which for me, is a pretty amazing accomplishment, since I had alot of self doubt about being a writer. When I first started here, I created poems to get my feet wet, and tried to wade into this HP world. One of the first was I wrote about what social services had done to my family, my children. This was a healing time for me, I had to get it out, and because of the empathy and support. I was able to "let it go", the pain part of it. And then I feel I began to "grow" into my niche as a writer.  I left Hp for a little bit.
    
    I needed to remove myself from any contact with the outside world for awhile. I felt better, accomplished some private things and then I came back. The only hard thing for me (this second yr after being back) was writing a story about a little girl who suffered and passed away from child abuse.
    
    It's called "The Journey of Emma and her daddy".  I cried the whole time I wrote this.
    
    Thanks for reading. :-)

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       Jean Bakulaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       The hardest hub I ever wrote turned into a whole series about a rare tarot card deck. I never meant to make a tutorial, but was in love with the deck myself, as I had never seen it before. I think it ended up as seven connected pieces. I tried to put the corresponding card next to  it's description. But it was at a time when HP was changing a lot, and I wasn't very experienced. So every time I changed something, the pictures and text didn't line up. It did become popular at least, after so many hours of work. Many people told me flatly that it was too long to read and would never be successful. So I'm happy it's been one of my best loved topics, and I learned how to read a new deck (to me) by writing it!

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    Writer Foxposted 11 years ago

    Try not to laugh, but the most difficult subject for me was for a client whose website I was hired to optimize.  The subject? Garage door openers and carpet cleaning.  I ended up writing the content for that site, too.  50 articles.  Thought I would die before I got through.
    
    SEO is a topic I love to write about and my articles do well on Google. The SEO Tutorial I posted on HubPages three weeks ago ranks #5 for 'SEO Tutorial 2013' out of 10,700,00 results, outranking Google's own guide to SEO and tutorials by famous SEO experts Bruce Clay and Moz. This is probably the most difficult topic to rank for because you are competing with the best SEO experts in the world. But, if you can't rank your own articles about SEO, you probably shouldn't be writing on this topic.

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    nArchuletaposted 11 years ago

    The two Hubs that required the most research were my "Papantla and the Papantla Flyers" and "The Art of Fondue" Hubs. For another website I wrote an article about the use of metaphor in Sylvia Plath's poetry. I've written a lot of poetry articles, and I love Sylvia Plath, but it was hard to find a consensus on that topic without going into English essay mode.
    
    I've had a Hub on Sevillanas in the works for awhile. I'll get to it eventually...

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18. 85

    Denise Handlonposted 11 years ago

    I have two answers:
    
    1. emotionally-the hub about cancer of the esophagus, which included my husband's death from this disease, and
    
    2. research:  having a facelift-not a subject I was particularly interested in, but was tied into the WTI at that time. 
    
    Good question, BTW

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