If I Had a Dollar for Every Story I’ve Skipped Over…
What is the true purpose of Medium?
One of the mysteries of Melbourne is that when they built a grand new airport in the Sixties, they didn’t also extend the suburban train system out there. Consequently, everyone has to get to and from the international gateway on increasingly choked roads.
“I’ll bet you wish you had a dollar for every time you’ve driven to the airport,” I said to my taxidriver, as he confidently wheeled us along the Tullamarine Freeway using muscle memory alone. At least we got to use the transit lanes, unlike most of the comatose cars sharing the road. “Oh, I suppose you do!”
Of course, it’s a long way out from the city, and it’s not unusual for the taxi ride to cost more than the flight itself.
But it’s that “If I had a buck for every…” phrase that interests me.
Over the years my taste in books has changed and if I got a dollar for every book I’ve read I’m sure I could afford a really nice car. — conny manero
Yes, but who pays people to read? And why would they? According to Patricia Chui, slush pile editor for WW Norton, “…the unsolicited manuscripts that deluged our office made my publishing job a trial by ordeal.”
(Incidentally, I urge every writer in the world to read her article on the subject. It’s a hoot.)
We felt as though we’d stumbled upon King Tut’s tomb. Who knew? Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, was married and living in Yonkers. — Patricia Chui, Confessions of a Slush Pile Reader
The reward in reading is rarely monetary. And I’m sure everybody reading this article has a story of their own on that particular topic. The gems, the dross, the enjoyment, the duty. Hey, write that story on the highs and lows of your reading career. Mention my name — Britni Pepper — and I’ll read it.
Here on Medium we pay to read. Not much, a buck a week, but the real bonus is that we also get paid to write, and if you are any good at telling a story, you’ll make your money back and more. Does it matter if you can’t write? Again, let’s hear from a wise woman:
Can writing be taught? Absolutely. —conny manero
It’s actually a positive feedback loop. Reading on Medium can be like a self-paced education on how to write. There must be about, oh I don’t know, a bazillion articles here on how to write. Just the curated topic alone is a Fine Arts degree.
And that’s the secret
Read enough, write enough, and you will have a dollar for every story you read. In fact, I’ve been at that happy point for the past month. Over the past thirty days, I’ve earned $650, which is a dollar for every hour of each day, more or less, and also a dollar for each story I’ve read. More or less.
The key point is that each story can be a teacher. Some are a master class in how to write. You can generally pick these by how many claps they have gained, where they are published, whether they have been curated, but mostly by the torrent of grateful comments afterwards.
Others, not so much, but even the most dismal article is the output of another human soul, put up on Medium for the world to see, and these unread, unloved, unknown stories can be an exercise in what not to do. Read the thing, and contemplate, “Now, how would I do that better?”
In fact, that’s exactly how I started writing erotica.
Make the most of your dollar a week
Yes, click on the articles you want to read. But make one thing your rocksolid takeaway: You will learn something from reading.
How to write better, how to organise your writing, how to look at life in a fresh way. Medium is full of things to lift your game.
And if it turns out to be something awful, something of the sort that sent Patricia Chui running shrieking through the night away from her job as a slush pile reader, don’t let it be a total writeoff. Identify one thing the writer did wrong and you would do better.
And then do it.
Britni
More writing tips:
