Is a Writer's Strength Only in the Number of Articles? Discovering Expertise Through Sen Asakawa's Portfolio

Have you ever looked at the achievements of someone working as a writer like yourself and found yourself comparing them to your own?

They have written in many fields.

They are entrusted with work other than just writing.

Even their background and expertise are neatly organized.

When you see a portfolio like that, while you may feel it's impressive, you might also feel anxious that you don't have much to show yourself.

This all started when I read the portfolio of Sen Asakawa, which I had been curious about for some time.

What I found there was a breadth of work organized to include not just writing, but also editing and proofreading.

Because I was reading it as a fellow writer, my impression didn't end at simply thinking they had many achievements.

What caught my attention was my own perspective on a writer's achievements.

Perhaps I have been focusing too much on the number of articles written and the genres covered.

Even if you have been working as a writer for a long time, your own strengths can be surprisingly difficult to see.

The more you work on something every day, the more you tend to think of it as something that should be easy to do.

You might think that the experience of correcting text many times or the time spent grasping the other party's intentions isn't worth mentioning as an achievement.

On the other hand, the backgrounds of other writers often look better than our own.

I don't have the same expertise as that person.

The breadth of experience and the scale of the work they have been entrusted with are different.

The more I feel that way, the smaller my own accomplishments can seem.

However, the achievements of other writers are not just for confirming the gap between them and yourself.

They are about what that person learned, what roles they were entrusted with, and how they connected those to their current strengths.

When you look at things from that perspective, the experiences you once took for granted start to look a little different.

The research conducted before writing an article.

The revisions made to improve readability.

The time spent refining expressions and structure to align with the client's intent is the same.

If you look back on each of these things and put them into words, they have the potential to become part of your own unique expertise.

A writer's strength is not determined solely by the number of articles they have written.

What did you think about before and after writing, and what kind of roles have you accumulated?

That is also where the unique value of that person is revealed.

In this article, using Sen Asakawa's portfolio as a starting point, let's look at what I noticed from the perspective of a fellow writer, and how to rethink your own experience as expertise.

To conclude, a writer's strength cannot be seen through the number of articles written alone.

What kind of articles were you involved in, what were you entrusted with, and how did you go about your work?

It is important to show that level of detail.

The catalyst for that feeling was Sen Asakawa's portfolio.

It doesn't just list writing achievements; it specifically organizes a wide range of work related to text, such as editing and proofreading.

As I read it as a fellow writer, I got a different impression than when I was just looking at the number of articles.

For example, if you see a number like 'hundreds of articles written,' the scale of the achievement is immediately conveyed.

However, objectively, it might just end with reactions like 'wow' or 'I see.'

This is because numbers alone make it difficult to see what kind of articles the person wrote, what they were responsible for, and what kind of ingenuity they applied.

On the other hand, a portfolio specifically records the content of the articles and work involved so far.

Article titles, genres, and roles played are clues that help us imagine the experience a person has accumulated.

I myself, after reading Asakawa-san's articles, found my attention drawn to the breadth of her work before the number of articles written.

This is because she had organized not just writing articles, but also roles like editing and proofreading as a single track record.

That made me realize that I might have been looking at a writer's strengths too much through just the number of articles and the genres they cover.

Also, depending on the portfolio, I sometimes see formats that include images of the actual articles or deliverables produced.

Simply adding images probably doesn't increase the value of the track record itself.

However, compared to explaining only with text, it makes it easier for others to concretely imagine what kind of deliverables were created and what kind of atmosphere the articles involved had.

Images are not meant to make a track record look bigger, but serve as an aid to visually convey the content of the work.

Furthermore, listing the tools used for work can also be an opportunity to re-evaluate one's own strengths.

Writing tools, image editing software, generative AI, spreadsheet software, etc., might be things the person uses on a daily basis.

However, just writing the tool names doesn't necessarily mean they become strengths as they are.

Which tools can be used for what kind of tasks?

Are they used for organizing article structures, or utilized for image production or data management?

By showing the tool name and its purpose together, it becomes easier for the client to judge what they can entrust to that person.

Skills that you take for granted yourself may not be fully conveyed to others unless you put them into words along with their purpose.

I don't think a portfolio is a place to just line up flashy achievements.

It is a place to organize the articles written so far, the roles entrusted, and the tools used along with their purposes, transforming your experience into a form that others can understand.

In that process, you may also see the possibility of conveying experiences you hadn't counted as achievements yet as strengths.

That is precisely why a writer's strength is not determined by the number of articles alone.

The research, revisions, proposals, confirmations, and the tools used daily that lie behind the number of articles.

Each of these things also serves as a foundation for building a person's expertise.

It was because I read Asakawa-san's portfolio that I, too, became able to look at the roles behind the number of articles.

When you feel that you have no strengths, first try looking back at what you have written and the roles you have been entrusted with so far.

As you organize them into a portfolio, the strengths you had overlooked because they felt too obvious will gradually take shape and become visible.

Even if you haven't put your strengths into words yet, there is surely value within your experience that you can share with others.