ABJECT FAILURE/RANT

“Help! I’m Melting!”

Into a puddle of Medium flop-sweat

Someone, please douse me with a bucket of ice water before I implode with excitement! I just received my MPP email telling me that I made $74.67 last month. That’s almost eighty bucks! As in eighty. You know how much that is, right? Less than one-hundred, but more than fifty!

Contain your envy. You’re better than that.

Could I be more of a flop? People, what the ever-loving F? I’m going to turn to you for guidance because I’m flummoxed. Flummoxed and looking for answers, so please, explain what is going on here as if I was a two-year-old. And let me have it with both barrels.

Just as an aside, normally, I would run this type of piece in Rogues’ Gallery, but The Top Shelf deserves some love, too, so here I am.

So please, help me decode this conundrum. What in the hell am I doing wrong on Medium? Aside from continuing to write on this platform? Have I not been sufficiently entertaining? Or engaging? Or any of that crap? Too funny? Not funny enough? Too blunt? Not blunt enough? Too profane? Not fucking profane enough?

I’m fresh out of tips, the kind many readers here, appreciate, anyway (aka, dreck), so maybe that has something to do with my top status as a low earner. Nor do I write a lot of sexy stuff, although I am rethinking this because, after reading several of the more detailed articles that unabashedly go for it, I’ve determined that there’s a lot more to a squirt, then, well…a squirt. As in money. So perhaps I’ll craft a smokin’ hot piece, one that makes me feel as if I’m a high-class (or not) hooker and you’re my johns. “Hand over the cash, suckas!”

Now there’s something to strive for.

Less than eighty bucks. When you consider that a few months ago, I earned $118, I’m moving in the wrong direction. I’ve done the back-peddle before but this is pitiful.

So pathetic, in fact, I don’t even know if curation is a thing, anymore. If it isn’t, what’s replaced it? What ridiculous pinnacle are we now required to reach?

Although I have a decent number of followers, which I’m very grateful for, the sad reality that, after all this time and what I consider to be a significant amount of fierce work, I’m still earning chump change, is disturbing to me. I don’t like to fail. At anything. Of course, no one does, but many people don’t beat the hell out of themselves as I do when I’ve failed to achieve my goals.

On the flip side of that coin is, I suppose you have to admire people who know when to quit. Who know that simply moving on is the best and healthiest course of action. For better or worse, I am not one of them.

And here’s something that makes me go, “hmmmmmm,” if I had a nickel for every time someone told me that they had to “work” to find my stories here, well, I’d be one of the Big Bucks People. Like Shaunta. Or Tim. Or whatever the hell that other guy’s name is.

You know — like them. Actually making a living at this. Now doesn’t that blow your mind? That some Medium writers don’t have to scrounge around and take crap from clueless, ageist employers and recruiters because they’re making enough coin right here?

And that writing on Medium is their actual gig?

So, tell me why I’m not one of them. If, you’ve been asking yourself the same question, consider this: Why should we have to remain in the dark? Have any of you ever contacted “yourfriendsatmedium.com” to find out why you suck? Or why they think you suck? That’s more to the point.

“Why is this, Medium? Tell me why you think I suck. I’ve been a paying member for over two years, unlike some of the folks you fawn upon and I’d appreciate your illuminating me. Please, I can take it.”

That last bit was a non-starter because they barely acknowledge my existence, except when I screw up. More on that in a minute.

Your honest opinion, folks: Is there suppression on this platform? Are some of us, by virtue of the fact that we speak our minds, being systematically phased out? Or ignored to the point where we finally turn tail and bounce? I know writers who have done just that. Gotten weary of pouring their heart and souls into stories that never get the accolades they deserve. This distresses me because when my friends hurt, I hurt. And there are a couple, who I won’t name as they don’t bother stopping by, anymore, who I truly miss.

Oh, I hope that this overly-dramatic scenario of suppression isn’t the case, but I don’t want to chase the carrot for another two years without knowing why I can’t get a bite out of the fucking thing. Who would?

Criticism, it seems, of any caliber, is frowned upon. If it applies to this platform, anyway. And that avoidance of, and disdain for truth-telling trickle down to the “Indie Pubs,” like the one which promptly dropped me after I had the temerity to voice the fact that they will publish anything, no matter how alarmingly awful.

Censorship in any form is disturbing, but, as we’re paying for the privilege to spill our guts here, should we be penalized for expressing “our truths?”

Admittedly, there are times when I spin off the rails, like a few days ago when I posted a story about Marjorie Taylor Greene that I deleted after Medium contacted me and said the piece violated standards by “inciting violence.”

And they were correct. Of course, I wasn’t actively trying to do that but my title was definitely in-your-face and unacceptable, just like Greene, herself. That said, I still think the image was pretty damned funny.

So where do we go from here? I’ve actively begun pitching my scripts again, after a very long hiatus and I find this reinvigorating. Too, I’ve made a few bucks from another writers’ platform but don’t see this continuing as their algorithm is shifting in a way that will ensure we scribes will be making bubkis.

And so it goes for writers. Screwed. And routinely. So, what can we do, as a group of very talented, virtually ignored, highly disgruntled group of wordsmiths who aren’t ready to jump ship but are tired of working — and this is work, no matter what anyone tells you — for spare change?

PLEASE NOTE: If you’re one of the happy campers who’s going to chirp that “writers write because they have to,” I respectfully request that you move on to another story.

I’m going to tag a few of my peeps here, so share your thoughts on this and please, don’t hold back. It probably won’t make a damn bit of difference in your stats if you do, so spill, Roz Warren, Don Feazelle, Sterling Page, Suzanne V. Tanner, Stephen Sovie, Vanessa Torre, Denise Shelton, https://RobinKlammer, Prickly Pam, Estacious(Charles White) and anyone else who’s had a belly-full.

© Sherry McGuinn, 2021. All Rights Reserved.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

Thanks for reading, guys. If you enjoyed this, I’d love for you to check out the following, as well as my newsletter, Sherry Raw.