The Year I Started to Write for Real

My review on 2020

The year is coming to an end and it’s time to look back. I haven’t quite reached 1K followers on Medium but I reached 900 today. Which is quite a milestone for me.

The first time I heard about Medium was in May this year. Just a few days later I had published my first article.

My writing journey

Months later I can proudly call myself a better writer. Every day I become better than the day before. That doesn’t mean I don’t do mistakes anymore. It just means that I learned a lot in these months on the platform.

I’ve learned a lot from other writers. I learned a lot about and from proofreading.

Previous to writing on Medium I had been writing online for six years already. Most of those years only in German. All of those years I only published on my website.

With nobody being able to judge my writing. To select my articles or not. To accept them or not. I just pressed publish and out they were.

Now, this all changed. Writing an article and publishing it became a longer process. Sometimes it takes several weeks for it to get out. Sometimes only a few hours. It depends on how I am planning to publish it.

The community

The best thing about Medium is the community. It’s obviously nice to be earning some bucks for the work you do too. But more than the money I do weigh the people around.

For me, the best thing about starting to write on Medium is the people I met. From all around the world. From different cultures and various continents. While a lot of us are having a different mother tongue we still all communicate. In words.

Because words are our passion. Writing down words. Writing connects us. Your writing inspired me. From reading lots of different articles from various writers I got inspired to write countless articles.

Noah Levy was one of the first people who approached me just after I started to write on Medium. Outside of Medium. He approached me to tell me how much he loves my stories.

So early in my writing journey on Medium, I was impressed by hearing other writers enjoying my work and telling me how great of a storyteller I am. He said.

Thank you so much for all the proofreading, confidence building conversations and simply communicating with me about my work. It meant and still means a lot to me.

Gurpreet Dhariwal is the next one who approached me on Facebook after we had been commenting on each other’s work for a while. She’s a genuine soul who never spares a compliment or motivational word when commenting on one of my pieces.

She writes a lot of poetry and even published a book on her collections. Despite writing in a different style than me, I enjoy reading her work and connecting to her with words a lot.

She feels like a soulmate to me. Despite never having met her. Yet. Thank you for being who you are!

And then there is Dennett. With her writing, the challenges she starts and the writing prompts she had been handing out, she’s inspired me to countless articles. I’ve written so much just because of seeing one of her photographs, reading a poem, or listening to the latest prompt she sends out.

With the photography challenge she started in June she changed the way I walk through the world. Since I joined the challenge there hasn’t been one day I didn’t capture some sort of a picture describing my day.

For 20 weeks I’ve been writing weekly photographic documentaries of my daily life. And she’s been reading and commenting on every single one of them. And countless other posts of mine too. Of course.

We only communicate via Medium. With posts. With writing prompts. With photographic collections. With responses to each other’s work. We communicate with written words. What we can do best.

And I love the exchange. She gives me so much. With her writing. With the publications, she is an editor for. With her complimenting words and inspirational comments.

Living on two different continents in very different climates we still connect. Through the eye of our camera lens.

Thank you so much. For everything, Dennett!

And there are many more. Many more writers I’m chatting to. Outside of Medium and on the platform. Through comments. Through photographs. Through writing responses.

Please don’t feel upset if I didn’t mention you. I decided to set a limit on three. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stopped tagging.

Bringing me to the next topic. Talking about people and connections. This is the result of it. My top three performing articles with a few thousand views and high search engine ratings. And another three articles which didn’t get the most clicks, but the most money in.

And no. Those are not the same.

My top 3 performing articles

“A Braai is not a Barbecue”

Published: 26/06/2020 — (8min read)

4K views (2% internal views — 98% external views)

“The Magic of a Sunset”

Published: 14/07/2020 — (7min read)

2.7K views (5% internal views — 95% external views)

“Happiness is Enjoying the Little Things in Life”

Published: 26/09/2020 — (7min read)

1K views (18% internal views — 82% external views)

None of them were curated/ chosen for further distribution. All of them have high search engine ratings and most of their traffic is external. They appear first in Google when typing in the title.

My biggest earners

“My Experience of Traveling Alone as a Woman in Africa”

Published: 19/06/2020 — (9min read)

275 views ( 57% internal views — 43% external views)

“Challenges of Being in Quarantine with my Grandma”

Published: 24/06/2020 — (12min read)

182 views ( 66% internal views — 34% external views)

Chosen for further distribution

“About Me — Anne Bonfert”

Published 16/07/2020 — (11min read)

255 views ( 84% internal views — 16% external views)

My top performing & earning article of December 2020

I’m adding this last one to this list because a publication I joined in December change the way my articles perform. Being a travel writer I have a few travel-related publications I send my work to, but none of them gave me much traffic.

Until now. Until I joined the World Traveler’s Blog. Within a few hours, I get more views than most other articles get in six months. And they also earned me some decent money. Despite being out only for such a short time.

Two of my top three earners of December are published in the World Traveler’s Blog.

So I am curious how they will perform long term. I got my hopes up. Especially because of the editors of the World Traveler’s Blog who are two passionate travelers and digital nomads themselves creating endless inspiring content.

Marcus Franke and Cody James Howell PhD (Raiden). Thank you so much for taking me into the publication. I love being part of this great community of adventure enthusiasts and exchanging words with fellow travelers.

I enjoy writing for them so much. They even made a list of headlines as an inspiration. How much easier can it get? All I got to do now is sit down and write.

And dig through my hard drive for more photos.

“The African Version of a Tropical Paradise”

Selected from the readers of the World Traveler’s Blog as the best story from the first two weeks in December.

155 views (69% internal views — 31% external views)

Conclusion

2020 has been a great year for me. As turbulent as it was. I’ve lived and worked on three different continents. During a pandemic. As weird as it sounds. But yes I did.

It’s been the year I had my breakthrough as a writer. The first time in my life I get paid for writing down what goes through my mind. Which is amazing. I know we all don’t write for money but the love of writing.

But we still love earning something for our hard work.

And I did that not only on Medium. I published this year my first book. In the beginning of December I brought out the paperback of my time in Ghana. In German. Which is upsetting for many of you my fellow readers. But it was my first step. A big one for me.

And as it couldn’t have gotten better I got accepted as a writer by Newsbreak and started posting my work on a second platform. Still waiting for my first paycheck which will be due in Jan I can only be excited about the outcome.

Anyone who doesn’t know what Newsbreak is just click here to check out my profile. If you’re interested in News and articles from writers around the world just download the App. Or if you want to become a writer for them you can send an application.

So thank you 2020. Thank you for teaching me to focus on the beauty and importance of the small things in life. Thank you for bringing me into the world of writers.

I did learn to focus on the positive things in life rather than look at what didn’t go well or as planned. There’s always something to look up to and forward to. And what I am looking forward to now is an even more exciting 2021!

I wish you all a

Happy New Year

and thank you for being such loyal and honest readers. I really appreciate it. Your reads, comments, and responses mean the world to me!

“Writing is an exploration. You start with nothing and learn as you go.” — E. L. Doctorow

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Anne Bonfert is a traveler. Photographer. Writer. Teacher. Skydiving instructor. Adventure enthusiast. Nature lover. And fell in love with the African continent.