I Got Over My Medium Slump

And you can too

Let’s just say I never saw it coming.

I hit the ground running.

My first article was curated and went viral. A top Publication invited me to join their staff of writers. I accrued some followers and considered picking out the color of my Rolls Royce. Which I assumed I could soon afford at the rate I was going.

I tossed off another article the next day, then another one, and went to bed. This was back when earnings came out every Wednesday.

Imagine my shock and horror when I looked at my first stats. How much I’d earned. A mere $13 for my first score. At this rate, I’d be rattling my tin can on the corner in no time.

What’s up? I said, wishing I could speak to those followers. Remember me? I’m the little old sexy lady who wrote I’m 80 and I Fantasize About Sex?

You loved me on Saturday night, but now you don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t clap.

Story of my life. A one night stand, just here for the sex.

So I did what I also do, what I know always works for me. I said fuck Medium and ate a carton of ice cream.

But then I put on my big girl splint to protect my old arthritic hands and churned out another article. I’ll show them, I said, fuming to my computer as I wrote in spite of my sugar hangover. If Hemingway could write sick as a dog, so could I.

Write what you know everyone says, so I did.

About writing hangups, being old, developing a writing practice. A few pitiful pieces. But I wrote from my heart, my funnybone putting in a word or two here and there.

I sent them off to Mediumland and went back to my day job, editing for my clients in my kitchen. At least they loved me. And the feeling was mutual.

Lo and behold, Medium curated another article or two. I picked up a tip from one of the big dogs about tags and got named a Top Writer. All in my second week. Ten days later and I’d almost hit 200 followers. Enough people had shown me love in the comments that even if I didn’t earn a penny, I was hooked on Medium for the high.

Or, so I thought.

And that’s when it happened. I hadn’t published anything in three days, and I didn’t have any new followers. Was I suddenly a failure at Medium? Was it all over for me? Had I jumped on a fast ride into oblivion?

I panicked and slid into a Medium Slump.

My trouble was, I had barely completed two weeks writing on the platform. I had an early success, and it had blinded me to one of the truths of life: No matter where you go, you take yourself with you.

If you’re like me, you start every project believing The New Yorker or The Huffington Post is waiting to snap up every one of your well-chosen words. Then you’re likely to fall into a pit of depression when the big-time editors don’t even bother to send you a coffee-stained rejection letter until six months after your juicy take on the latest trending story is passé.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that I jumped into Medium posting article after article without really knowing the ropes, and then slipped into a funk at the first sign that my meteoric rise had stalled because maybe I didn’t yet know what I was doing.

You see, when I heard Medium paid real money for writing, I said dial me up, Scotty. I’d already kicked writing block to the curb and easily cranked up my output. I knew I could churn out a few thousand choice words at the drop of a hat, so let me at it, I said as visions of dollar signs danced in my head.

I’ve worked hard at my craft, a good part of which is developing confidence in what I do. I scanned Medium’s categories and found great pieces on how to do well on the site. A few short articles rolled off my fingers.

My first one hit the airwaves and immediately picked up readers. Big surprise. I’m eighty years old, but I haven’t forgotten that sex sells. I sat back and watched the article wrack up the claps, buffing my nails, and counting my money.

But a relationship with Medium is, well, complicated.

I wasn’t prepared to understand niches, and metrics, and marketing. So when my early success hit a wall, all I could see was failure. But I haven’t gotten to be this age largely on my own without having taken a turn down that rough road. And the first rule is Slumps happen.

If I’d spent some time reading what writers were saying about the pitfalls on Medium, I would have known that. And the landing from my first week wouldn’t have been so hard. Instead, I had only peered at the platform through my rose-colored glasses, which blinded me to some harsh realities. Namely, Medium doesn’t give out boxes of money, just because.

It seemed that way because I only read articles by the writers in the 10K a month club. And somehow I missed their stories detailing their slumps. Funny how that works.

So I had to start figuring out who my readers were, and more importantly, what they wanted.

I had to learn to read my dashboard and figure out what type of article did well and which tanked. I had to get better, much better at headlines. I did, and things began to pick up.

Lo and behold, Medium curated another article or two. I picked up a tip from one of the big dogs, and tagged a small group and got named a Top Writer. When I hit 200 followers, I was hooked on Medium again.

I’m a freelancer. I understand the fear of slumps that happen before the rent is due.

When you’re looking to a platform to supplement your earnings, which is why I’m on Medium, a slump of a few days or worse, weeks or months, can be scary. After my first slump, I made a plan. A real one this time. I budgeted my time and estimated a reasonable number of posts I could write each week.

Medium isn’t my only gig. I have those other clients, and I still write novels. I’d have to knock off some time-wasting activities, keep my head down writing instead of trolling the internet or binging on Netflix.

I don’t have the energy I used to, but I realized I could marshall the time I have when I’m most productive, and that helped me climb out of my first slump.

The next slump hit when I took a break to spend time with visiting relatives. I thought I’d be able to write before we went sightseeing each day, but that was a pipe dream. So my earnings tanked at the end of that week, and then I couldn’t get my head back in the game when they went home. It took me a while to come back from vacation mode. But eventually, I was back at it.

Until . . . Medium changed the game again. We all went reeling at the end of October when we learned we had to go from claps to reads. I was in denial at first, but my own version of panic set in. My first day’s earnings scared me. Then I had a brain freeze and couldn’t write with my usual abandon.

I was sure I was done on Medium, but I had to talk my way down from that ledge. It took me awhile to get a handle on my earnings, but by the time the end of the month reared its head, I had upped my output as a new strategy. My efforts to increase my followers were paying off and my daily earnings were doubling and tripling.

Will they stay that way?

From what I know of slumps, probably not.

From what I know of adapting to slumps, I’ll figure something out.

Here’s what I’m sure of. Thinking of slumps of failure hurts us. It stops us from looking for solutions.

I’m telling you my story, not because I have a method of avoiding slumps. Slumps happen for many reasons. Medium will change the algorithm. We’ll have a crisis and can’t write.Our readers will find a new fave writer for a while. And then there are sunspots, as in, who knows?

So I’m telling you my story because I’ve come to depend on Medium to supplement my income. I’ve had slumps that have scared me, but I’ve had to work my way through them with a strategy for dealing with my fear as well as new methods of earning. I just have to persevere.

I have a modest goal for my first year on Medium. From where I am now, I’ll reach it sooner than I’d hoped. But who knows what the next slump will bring? I know I’ve learned important lessons so far.

They’ve helped me have my best month yet.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll make sure you don’t miss a word. Thank you for reading.