What Does It Take To Resurrect A Writing Practice?
Like the guru said about sugar, give me 30 days and I’ll tell you.
I know what it takes to develop a writing practice.
A quarter of a century of dedicated, daily writing.
Writing with the flu.
Writing through self-doubt.
Writing before and after surgery (except for open-heart surgery. I gave myself a pass on that one. But not for long.).
So with all that grit and fortitude under my belt and $2k coming in from Medium every month, why did I let it go?
Parsing that mistake is for another day.
How I get it back is the topic of the moment.
I’m going to borrow my answer from a story about the monk who was asked by a supplicant, “Master, how do I give up sugar?”
The monk, sitting atop his mountain, shrouded in his robes and looking all beatific and s**t, cast a wise glance on the poor man munching miserably on his M&Ms while looking for enlightenment.
“My son,” the monk intoned, “come back in three weeks, and I will tell you how to give up sugar.”
“But, master,” the poor man said, “I have such dreadful cravings. Why do I have to wait three weeks before you give me your answer?”
The monk nodded sagely and said, “Well, first, I have to give up sugar. Then I will tell you how to do it.”
So, yes, I’m comparing myself to the wise man sitting on a mountain top.
I know many things (but not how to give up sugar).
How to start a writing practice. How to write when assailed by doubt, pain, deadlines, and even boredom.
Yet what has bedeviled me in the past many months is how to regain my former discipline after I made the supremely stupid mistake of letting my writing habit go.
A little backstory to explain my predicament.
I’ve been on Medium for roughly three years and had beginner’s luck. I earned the magical $100 my first month, and every month after that, my income grew exponentially. I’d never imagined myself as an essay writer, but once I started, I enjoyed the form.
I never broke into five figures but earned more than enough money to justify the time I spent here, since it wasn’t my only source of income. In addition to Medium, I have 55 titles selling on Amazon, and I have an editing business catering to fiction and occasionally non-fiction writers. I was even happier with the friends I made on Medium.
So I was not dependent on my monthly reads or motivated to work harder as I had other fish to fry.
Then came the pandemic.
For six or eight months, I fought it like it was an army of cockroaches until the day I hit the wall. Tired of lockdown. Tired of exercising until I was wearing a hole in my living room rug. Tired of … you know the drill, you’ve been there. So, as if on cue, like the rest of the creative world, I hit the wall and pulled the plug writing my essays.
Not all at once. I stopped posting daily. Then it was twice a week, then once or twice a month, but soon my Medium writing had gone the way of eight-track tapes.
But I missed the daily connection to friends, I missed the money, and most of all, I missed the writing.
But after months of not writing my daily articles, I couldn’t come up with an idea to save my vaccinated bohonkus.
Over a year later, it’s still eating at me that I want to be a Medium writer. I read articles that Medium has changed. The money isn’t good anymore. Medium isn’t this and isn’t that, blah, blah, blah.
But people have been complaining about Medium since I started. My friends are still here, and Medium gives me some benefits I need at my advanced age.
I’m 82.5 years old. I’m in reasonably good health but try to take that to the bank. There was a time in my life when I believed time was my friend. I could imagine writing many books and articles because I trusted the fiction of time.
Now, I’ve used up so much of that time, and the last two years have made a mockery of planning. Planning? Tell the people of Ukraine about making plans.
So at my advanced age, I want the satisfaction of finishing a piece of writing and publishing it every day because I can’t trust how long I can do it. But I can do it today. I still have enough marbles to work on my books and come through for my editing clients. No reason why I can’t do what it takes to write on Medium again. (Hear me giving myself a pep talk? That’s tip number 1.)
Some people complain that Medium isn’t their platform of choice anymore, but for right now, I’ll take it. Maybe I’ll dip my toes in other waters such as Vocal or Simily, but I want to get back to what I know. Writing every day. Publishing every day. Medium allows me to do that.
Maybe I won’t make the same money I used to, maybe I won’t get a bunch of followers again. But this is still my Medium, allowing me to do it my way.
When I stopped writing in lockdown, I lost my focus. It was insidious because I still worked with words and not as I’d completely stopped writing. But I lost my Medium words. And lately, as in the past year, I’ve found it hard to start an article once I get an idea. If I get as far as starting a piece, I have trouble finishing it.
I’ve been here before. It’s why I decided to start my writing practice in the first place. I was tired of stopping and start writing. But here I am again, not with my fiction but with essays.
I’m pretty sure there’s no magic bullet to getting back on the horse. You do it the hard way, the old way.
Follow the ABCs. Attach Butt to Chair.
But I’ll let you know. In 30 days.
