Every Time I Gave Up, Medium Curated My Article

Let’s start at the beginning.

I’ve known about Medium since 2018. I loved the concept and user-friendly layout of it, but it was a different time when I neither considered myself a “writer” in any sense of the word nor did I have time to sit and read for pleasure; I only had 2 functioning brain cells and needed them to study Gary Armstrong and aggressively make power-points for me.

I wanted more but was quite okay with reading 3 articles a month. But come January 2020, I decided to give medium it’s due and become a paying member.

Boy did I regret not paying up earlier. In the following 2 months, I gorged on Medium. There is a wide array of topics to choose from, and they’re written by absolutely brilliant writers here.

Watching all this, the sleeping writer in me kept getting roused now and then, and one day I finally caved and sat down to write.

Part One

I’d been reading “The Magic Manga of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo at the time, and I always make notes from self-help books, so I had a whole article pretty much ready before my eyes when I finished the book.

14th March 2020. I sat down to write at 11 pm and by 1 am, I was through. I titled it “Tidying up, Marie Kondo Style” and simply published it on my profile.

Not the best title, I know. Too straight to the point even. But back then, I had just begun writing and thought it was not my job to lure people in if they weren’t interested. LOL.

Anyway, I held this article in high regard. Informational? Check. Hot girl picture? Check. Diagrams by the author to make it look well researched and thought out? Check.

Imagine my shock the next morning when I saw that it didn’t go viral or have hundreds of people lapping it up. Does nobody care about cleanliness anymore?

It only had one view. The saving grace was that the read ratio was 100% and they left a clap.

My article was dead after that.

I gave myself solace by saying that that was just the fate of this article since obviously, people have better things to do than reading about tidying up, like how to make $$$ on Medium.

But the thought of wasted potential on that article never left me.

So once in a while, I’d pop in and review the article; alter a line here and there, and then change the hot girl picture to an aesthetically pleasing picture because of course, she wasn’t doing a very good job at drawing attention. And then put her back on.

I did all this while I focused on other articles and started getting accepted into publications. But none of my articles were doing very grand at all. A clap here and there thrown around by a few enthusiastic ones in a bored audience, and my enthusiasm was wearing off.

Of course, I still wrote, writing was my first love affair. But just not for medium. I was growing weary of it and somehow thought I didn’t fit in.

By mid-April, I stopped caring. I wasn’t drawing more than 20 pairs of eyes and no-one waiting to read what I wrote next, so what did I have to lose? Zilch.

On one of these April nights, I turned on my laptop and pulled out the article from medium completely. Put it on Microsoft Word and reviewed it with the concentration of a hawk. I even let the hot girl go for good. I realized I wanted people to come to the article for content, not to see someone holding a laundry bag and giving them “the look”. I put up an aesthetically pleasing picture and slashed 20% of the content. Over-information can be overkill too.

And then, after I was sure that the article was a 10/10 in my eyes, I submitted it to Writer’s Blokke. The first pub I felt accepted and found an audience in. They accepted and published it almost immediately, and it was all the validation I needed, like “Wow, this is a wonderful piece, it must go up immediately” and turned off the computer, satisfied. I had given up, remember? I knew it probably wouldn’t do very well, so leaving it to the medium gods (the audience) to decide for themselves, I went to bed.

Oh, the things that happened while I slept.

Long story short, the people suddenly seemed too eager to tidy up. I surpassed 900 views and scrolled down to views and saw that someone shared the article on Flipboard that couldn’t seem to get enough of it? and, Medium curated my article? In lifestyle!!!?? AND Self???

For someone hoping it gets 50 views tops, this was more than my feeble heart could take.

I worked hard on that article, I can’t count the number of times I scrutinized it, and took it a notch up and down, trying to understand the pulse of the readers here. I still love my first final draft, the one with the hot girl picture and 15 numbered points. But I was writing for the reader.

So if you’re still here, Do not give up on your article. Keep finding places to fix it till you can’t anymore.

Ok, the first part of this story has ended guyz.

The article I’m yapping about above:

Part Two

My second half of this story starts in May. I was writing and posting articles quite frequently, but found myself heading towards a writer’s block. I was sitting motionless in front of the system, looking for inspiration. And then I thought, why not write about something I’m good at and wouldn’t need much research to finish. I was thinking about my strengths, and the first thing that came to mind was my listening skills.

So I started typing furiously, with no research and no background. Just tips on good listening practices from a good listener. Clean as a coat. Or whatever is clean.

But then something funny happened.

When I came back to edit it a few hours later, I didn’t like the article. I didn’t like the topic. It put me off like bad breath and I let it go. It continued to sit in my unpublished stories, and I continued to avoid it like the plague. But just like one “avoids” the plague because, somewhere, they acknowledge it’s existence, every time I went to write a new story I’d find it staring at me cynically.

Cut to the morning of 23rd May 2020- two weeks since I first wrote the article- I woke up and started doing that thing. The thing where we lay in bed thinking about the amount of work to be done but don’t get up. That article sat on my chest like a heavyweight.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I whipped out my laptop, and sitting in bed with tousled hair and eyes wide open, I worked on that article. I titled it “The Cheat Sheet For Becoming A Great Listener.” Once I was sure I did my best and gave it everything I could, I hit submit and forgot about it.

I was just glad it was out there and not in my unpublished stories section anymore.

An hour later, I opened up medium and there was just one notification. I wasn’t expecting much, so I was happy someone liked it.

But it was Medium, telling me the story was selected under topics for “Self” and “Relationships”.What?

The article performed well. It had two distinct audiences. One was working on improving themselves. The other thought they were great listeners and were sending it to whoever they thought needed it.

What humored me most was how the views were increasing not because of curation but due to people DM’ing it to their friends and family. Imagining the passive aggressiveness with which it was ending up in people’s inboxes still makes me laugh.

With this, the second part is also ended guyz.

Feel free to scrutinize:

For You

After reading the above, I’m sure you have a fair idea that we writers can’t tell when something might pique the interest of curators. We just have to do what we do best — write- and forget about the rest.

Curation on Medium isn’t hard, but it’s also not easy.

But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t even bother.

In fact, it means you must bother. Bother when you’re writing, bother when you’re editing, and bother when you’re trying to make your piece compelling. But once you’ve done all that, let go.

Don’t get fidgety and constantly check your stats. Or notifications. And then think you’re a big old loser or that your elementary school English teacher was right when she said you can’t write.

More often than not, the best writings of a writer are the ones no one reads. My best article, the one I put my heart and soul into and left a piece of myself in, got 30 views.

The specialty of art is you can never tell how the world will receive it. And that’s why it should be done for oneself. Yes, we must write keeping our readers in mind, but at the crux of it, we must write because it gives us a sense of fulfillment. We must write because we can’t imagine a world without it. After all, that’s what keeps us sane.

Art has always been more about the individual than the audience.

So all I’m saying is, do your best and let go.