My Secret to How I Published 173 Stories in Less than 3 Months

This is not to brag, this is to show YOU how you can be more productive and publish more stories.

I know we all hate to love these kinds of stories, or maybe we love to hate them, I’m not sure which.

I just know that every time I see one of these titles, it makes me want to cringe, especially if they’re talking about how they got followers on Medium, or how they’re making thousands of dollars every month.

I’m nowhere near making that much, or frankly, even hundreds of dollars. But I have done just in the title. I’ve published 173 stories here on Medium, since May 1,2021 when I rejoined the site as Justiss Goode.

Full Disclosure First

Notice I said rejoined the site, so let me give some full disclosure. Then I’ll tell you exactly how I was able to publish all those stories in a relatively short time.

I’m been writing online for years, so I have previous content writing skills, plus I tried writing for Medium before, prior to the pandemic. I wrote a lot of stories but had no idea how to properly navigate the site. The site also did a lot of things differently.

I eventually gave up after a few months, discouraged like many writers who are sometimes too impatient for things to happen. You can read all about my related writing journey on any of my profile-related stories.

Long story short, I started publishing as Justiss Goode, and have been writing here as her ever since.

Facts About My Writing

I’m going to be honest and let you know all the things I believe helped me accomplish having published nearly 200 titles already.

You can read and accept it as my advice and opinions on how you can do the same thing, or you can thumb your nose at it and move on to the next story. But if you’re serious about being more productive and increasing your output of stories, this is GUARANTEED STUFF!

• At least 25% of the stories I’ve published have been revived from something I’ve previously written on Medium. Those same stories that did nothing under my former pen name. I pulled down.

I only left a handful of stories remaining under my Charm Baker profile, except for those that were published in other writer’s publications.

• Another 10 or 15% is from things I’ve previously written about in other places online, usually one of my own blogs or websites (that are basically inactive and unattended to).

In both instances, whenever I revive content for new stories, I update the information (if needed), and put a new or different spin on it.

• The remaining 60% of the stories I published result from new ideas that came to me, after reading something, viewing something, or feeling some kind of way about a subject, including my past life experiences, and the people in it.

So it’s safe to say, when it comes to how or where I was able to find ideas for stories that I’ve published, it comes from everything I’ve ever done, wrote about, or cared about.

Sometimes Change is Good

Once upon a time, the only way I could write (or so I thought), was to use pen and paper, write my thoughts, then transcribe my notes to a Word document.

This was my process for years, and I was quite resistant to change. When I finally did change, I discovered I could actually create at my computer, and not just transcribe, and believe me, it saved me a lot of time.

Thank goodness too, because this process helped me write my first novel, although to this day, I still use pen and paper to jot down notes, but not to write everything out like before.

Now, fast forward to the revelation I had about being a more productive writer here on Medium.

The first week or two (when I returned in May), I used my usual method of writing my stories in MS Word, then copy and pasting them onto Medium’s platform. For as long as I’ve been an online writer, this has been my process.

Not only did I not have to worry about losing data because a website didn’t save it, but I like the idea of having my own offline portfolio of all my writing.

Well, about mid-May, I decided to write directly on the platform — in draft mode, which saves your work until you’re ready to publish.

Although I wasn’t too happy about only creating one copy of my writing, and I even lost a bit of content a couple of times, I actually enjoyed writing directly on Medium’s platform.

A Secret Method that Works

The secret method that REALLY works, has to do with the logistics of things. The reason I enjoyed writing and saving drafts on the platform is because it was so easy to do.

But mainly because the drafts that I set up felt that much closer to being published.

But then I let about 15 drafts stack up, and I started to second guess my decision about the method (I get antsy that way).

I didn’t like the feeling of all those drafts sitting there, staring at me, and defying me to finish them all. That’s how I felt until I discovered something while reading one of the TOP MEDIUM EARNERS’ stories.

This is my screenshot, confirming the number of stories I published.

I won’t say the name, but the member I’m referring to also shared a screenshot of her stories page, just like the one I’m showing on this page.

She was using it to confirm her claim about the number of stories she published, just like me. But although it wasn’t part of the conversation, what I also noticed was the number of drafts she had.

The number is located right next to the number of published stories, and I kid you not. She had over 1000 drafts, just waiting to be finished!

That was an “Ah hah” moment for me. This was a top earner, and her method included having tons of drafts, just waiting in the wings to be published.

Here I was, fretting about having a meager 15 potential story ideas for me to contend with, and she had more than a thousand!

As you can see from the number of current drafts in my screenshot, I haven’t created hundreds of drafts, but what I have done is come to understand the importance of this method to your productivity.

The drafts allow you to have something to jump right into and start writing. If you find yourself in a different mood or frame of mind, you can work on something else.

Just pick a draft and finish it in one setting, once you work on it, or work on it a little at a time. I tell you, this is the idea way to get a lot of writing done in half as much time.

No, I don’t have a thousand drafts waiting for me to work on. I have quirks and conditions that won’t allow me to even think of leaving that much “unfinished” business.

Which gets me to my final issue about what you are and cannot accomplish with this method, or any method someone offers you as writing advice.

My Individuality

Who I am as an individual bears my having been able to publish so many stories at such a fast pace.

• I have a work-at-home job of caring for my older sister, which affords me a flexible schedule and lots of time to write
• I have an obsessive-compulsive behavior pattern, so I latch onto things that are numbered or can be counted. I wrote about it a while back. So I honestly think I’m obsessing over watching the number of stories grow.
• I have a crazy sleep pattern, so sometimes I stay up writing, all night long, then adjust my day’s routine so I can get some sleep.

Most writers are here to earn money writing, so that means understanding all the variables involved. Clearly, if individuality is a factor, then not everyone can expect to experience the same results.

Maybe you don’t work at home, or have a flexible schedule. Maybe you don’t have an army of former articles to fall back on.

If you want to be a more productive writer and increase the number of stories you write, the first thing you have to do is recognize that your progress is YOUR progress. It’s not about what some other writer is doing.

Your Takeaway

If you need to take something away from this story, please feel free. This is my humble opinion on what you should take away, and the only advice I can offer, to:

Improve your ability to be more productive and write more.

• Start setting up some drafts of the stories you plan to write
• Make your own quota for how many drafts you want to ALWAYS have available, to work on.
• Make your own quota for how long you’ll allow a draft to sit on your shelf
• Give the draft a tentative title and add tags, images, subheadings whenever convenient, even if you change them later.
• Insert notes and chunks of content you might use, right into the draft,
• Pull story content and ideas from other stuff you’ve ever written or discussed.
• Think about those long detailed emails you may have sent to someone about a certain topic.
• Think of a complaint letter you might have once written.
• Think of what you’ve been scribbling in your journal. Just think and write, simple as that.
• Think about the things you care about and why you care about them, and write about that.

Dear Readers: Thank you for allowing me to share with you. Some of you may simply want to be entertained with an interesting or amusing story. Others maybe seek self-awareness, and reliable advice about writing, or even family and relationships.

Either way, whatever the case; my stories and personal essays are written to provide valuable life lessons that I’ve learned myself — the hard way — and hopefully help you avoid similar problems in your everyday life.

Would you like to read more informative, valuable, and entertaining Justiss Goode stories? Just click this Directory link: choose from my OVER 160 titles (by category).

Or visit any of my Medium publications:

Black Like Me | Just Like New | Hard Knock | Short Story TIPSTER

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