Can Medium Writers Take a Break From Writing Without Repercussions?
Learning from my personal experience with the platform
Hi everyone,
To introduce myself if this is the first time you came across my name and story, I am still relatively new to Medium, although not to writing. I’ve been with Medium over 3 months something, four months in 4 days. And with writing, since I was 6 or 7 years old that’s now a period of more than 20 years. Although for good 15 years I minimized my writing for shorter, professional and scientific contributions rather than truly creative pieces full of my essence. It was a journey and my lesson to learn that eventually brought me back to what fueled my writing since the very start — that being my soul and a genuine desire to share who I am through my words, or letters.
Since joining Medium, I took writing online seriously and as I was overflowing with ideas and thoughts, kept contributing over here every 3–4 days weekly. That’s been for the last 3 months.
My Medium journey
My dedication to frequent and regular writing quickly started producing results.
Those being me getting first reads and many more reads upon just a few first days by joining publications such as Illumination that published me the very first time. This boosted my confidence in sharing and in this platform, and by going deeper, uncovering even more layers of ‘me’, my perceptions, personal experiences and worldview, I started gaining followers as well. I mean people who read me once and then, were coming back for more stories from me. Two months back in June, I had 68 followers and today that’s 291 people who chose to support me that way. When it comes to reads, I managed to increase them — five to ten times monthly from the previous results.
Soon enough, this also manifested in many of my stories getting curated and further boosted by Medium editors that got me exposure, not to tens, but hundreds to thousands of new readers who got to discover me then. And being published in The Ascent, Age of Awareness or Honest Creative surely contributed to these results too. And this all also showed in me earning a few of Top Writer badges, that being in writing about Love, Mental Health, Education, Inspiration, Life Lessons, Self-Improvement.
And ultimately, I started earning surprisingly big to my initial expectation upon joining — mainly because I didn’t really aspire to write for profit. Up until now, I’ve made around $470 on Medium from writing. That being £9 in May, over $283 in June and $159 in July. August is still in the making.
Notable to say that my most popular article till date with over 5000 views,100 fans and over 144 hours of reading time, including massive earning, was self-published over my own publication. So what picked it up was the topic and people’s interest in it rather than me writing for a fancy publication.
But things change when one changes the course, gets more unconventional in how and how often they produce content, and yes, takes some break from Medium.
Taking a break from Medium
So to my initial question — Can Medium writers take a break from writing on Medium without repercussions?
Well, we certainly can, as that’s our right. However from my experience, as with everything else, it comes with a certain price. And so it’s up to what each of us is looking for from our unique Medium journey.
I took a break from writing regularly due to many reasons but essentially because I needed to allocate the time previously devoted to regular writing to more priority activities. And despite the fact that I was earning from Medium.
The truth is that writing on Medium isn’t my primary focus or a source of income, rather a complementary activity that feeds my passion and fuels my creative growth.
I do have a Coaching and Consulting business to look after — that’s my priority asking my unapologetic attention and commitment and there was a lot it required, especially in the past two weeks. Although it’s fair to say that writing helped me to expand my business in a way that I’ve not presumed before. Enabling me to connect with new clients that connected with me thanks to resonating with my message and approach, and I got more recognition among a completely new audience.
And although I am one of the strong advocates of having goals and targets in (almost) everything we do. That starts from creating ideas in our minds, then drafting a clear plan and sticking to it so we progress to achieving our goals rather than run in circles. And that applies to writing as well. Yet, sometimes in life, we need to be flexible when it comes to rules.
Again, all depending on what a person is looking to achieve. And where their priorities lie. So here’s the question — which ones are yours?
For me, writing is not a job. And so my success in writing (over Medium and elsewhere) comes from writing authentically when and as I feel like — freely and completely relaxed, rather than self-consciously due to being bound by rules and deadlines and stressed about results. I cannot write like that.
For me, it’s very important to write as a joyful activity of my self-expression coming from my essence, my soul and who I am, effortlessly and enjoy the process. Rather than seeing it as a job to be done while getting conscious about the results — how often and how much content I have to produce.
Focusing on results shouldn’t suppress the joy of creating and sabotage the creative process altogether.
What happened during my break
So, when I took a break, based on my situation, this is what happened.
I lost all my top writer badges within two weeks — because I suppose, I wasn’t producing as much as the Medium algorithm would expect me to.
My newly produced articles got much less readership and support than what they usually receive. I suppose, it also has to do with Medium promoting the authors that write regularly over those who show up as they please. Being more spontaneous than focusing on writing as a chore — a job.
My earnings also went down but so did the amount of my published work and as there’s a correlation between the two, it’s quite logical. Although I am quite confident that if one of my 3 articles from August were a hit — a catchy popular topic documented in a clever way, such as this piece, I’d be back on the track with all the stats as before.
Only that I didn’t have such an article in mind and I also don’t mind my stats changing, neither my readership changing, my top writer badges, nor my earnings changing.
Because what’s important for me is writing from the heart. And when I was able to reach really positive stats in less than 3 months of committed work while sticking to this principle — I am sure I can get back there and keep on growing and improving whenever I resume writing on Medium as I used to.
Oh, what I didn’t lose were my followers — they still stick with me, my following actually kept growing. To my wonder! So, thank you all, guys, who still are with me and believe in me and my message. You’re the reason why I continue writing and so your support truly means a lot to me.
I also didn’t lose inspiration and love for writing, on the contrary, I feel even more inspired now that I allowed myself some healthy break that involved a lot of organic thought process and brainstorming on what I want to focus more on going forward in my writing and professional creative work.
I came up with many new ideas that I may take ahead and expand beyond Medium. Most importantly,
I realized that I don’t want to depend on Medium in any way — however great this platform is, I want to expand myself beyond it. Because I can.
I’ve seen myself getting dependent on Medium over the past 3 months, however much I was growing. I was getting addicted to seeing claps on my articles, growing views and reads, growing following. And for what? I see now how much this can limit my muse and actual inspiration to write.
The break made me realize that I don’t need to stick with Medium to write at all and that I can take my talent way beyond what’s the conventional way of thinking about writing and content creation. I want to get involved in writing for newspapers or magazines online — the ones that resonate with me and give me a chance, to sharpen my skill and move ahead again.
And I am also seriously considering writing a book. Because what was only an idea, a light nudge that kept coming back to me a few times, is now a more matured and expanded concept, has much more substance and I also have much more confidence and dedication to write with commitment!
My past three months over Medium were good training for that. I mean, if I was able to produce 50 articles I am quite happy with over just 3 months — put all those numbers together, if I have the same dedication, should I not be able to write a book if I follow a certain process and keep my motivation alive?
I trust I can. It’s all in my hands in the end.
To conclude, my break from Medium definitely helped me see new perspectives and grow as a writer.
Before you take a break from Medium
If you’re playing with the idea of taking a break from Medium as well, I’d advise you ask yourself some questions first. Those being:
- What is your purpose of writing over Medium?
- What are you looking to achieve? (improve your writing, connect with fellow writers and editors, join publications and write regularly, grow your following, promote yourself, your services and products, earn?)
- Is this your source of income and how much do you depend on it?
- Why are you looking for a break? What would you like to gain by it?
- Do you want to change your rhythm of writing and develop a new regularity? What would be the ideal scenario you’re looking for?
- Is your following, visibility and Medium status important for you?
- Are you willing to take a risk of losing something (such as your stats, status or following), in the bargain of gaining a new perspective, inspiration and muse?
Have a think about it, and whatever choice you make, enjoy the process!
Hope this piece helped you in some way. In either case, thank you for reading till the end.
Yours,
Lucy
Here’s what I do when I am not contemplating writing on Medium. Feel free to connect with me for a personal conversation over here through comments or at [email protected]
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