My First and Most Popular Article

So I’m really grateful to be tagged by VRITANT, my first Medium friend whom I first connected with on Twitter, to post this article. Here’s mine.

My First Article

This personal essay was the start of my writing journey on Medium.

I was badly affected by this phase, which spanned over a long period, and it was sucking the life out of me. I wrote it to share my experience and hopefully, helpful tips I’ve received from a professional to help others. When I found that embracing it as a fuel to work harder didn’t exactly work for me, I wanted to share my experience even more, for those who have gone through or are currently in the same situation too.

I recall planning and writing it first on Quora 2 months ago, answering the question about an unexpected rut. I rewrote and edited it heavily before republishing it on Medium to make it a little more personal, but geared more towards the readers and less for myself.

I struggled with the notorious concept of ‘perfection’ that many Medium articles have been talking about. I wrote and edited for almost 4 nights (I wrote only at night before bed) that week from Wednesday night till Friday night, making every little slight change and constantly finding fault in the smallest detail. I’m glad I eventually hit publish that Saturday midnight, 2 weeks ago at 1:22 am (yes, I wrote it down in my final draft to commemorate it).

Without the publication of this article, there probably wouldn’t be a start to the rest of my Medium journey. This morning (22 Oct 2021), I am very lucky to say that I’ve just applied for the Medium Partner Program (wish me luck, guys)!

My Most Popular Article To Date

My most popular article to date as I write just so happens to be my previous post. With a 46% read ratio (as of 22 Oct 2021), I’m very glad that many people resonated with the article, and it warms my heart to have read the responses of people who shared their experiences, perspective, and advice.

I know this isn’t an uncommon problem — which is likely the reason for it having the highest read ratio among the rest of my articles. This issue bugged me for quite a while, so I decided to write about it — yeap, a new content idea. I’m very glad I did and that it received the responses that it has. I’m glad the story and the readers resonated with each other and I was able to gather more perspectives on this.

I will now tag a few other Medium friends of mine to join me in sharing their takes on this post:

To my first follower, Justjulieandherblog, who also accepted my first post to a publication,

My first email subscriber, Priyanka Bhalshankar, a supportive fellow writer who I’m glad I met on Medium,

Along with other Medium friends in the really warm and friendly community which I’m glad to share this journey with:

Mark B. Gilgam, Joe Franklin, Molly Headley, Katrina Smarova, I am Valerio, Lia Chen-Hwang, Billy Jones, J Krumrine, PhD, Abdul Kader, Dave, Nimity, Felishia La-Shae, Danielle Hestand, Luccia Gray, Rosa de Saron C., Reiner Knapp, Simon K., Ephraim Champion, Emily Anspach and many more but it’s hard to tag literally everyone!

Do follow these amazing writers too! Keep reading, clapping and responding!

I’m really grateful to be on this journey with every reader and writer that I’ve met on Medium. Let’s continue this journey together on Medium and I’m excited to read your takes on this post. Thanks again to VRITANT for inviting me to share this post! :)

P.S. Do tag me at @ashleywritess when you guys post your take on this!