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ublishing 250 articles and going forward:<ol><li>Give yourself time and do not be discouraged if your published articles do not get enough views and reads. The great majority of my published articles were initially downright failures, but some of them have eventually achieved traction after many weeks, even months. Instead of <a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-kill-your-ego-after-creating-new-stuff-a90179817fbe">obsessing over your metrics and statistics, spend your time to create your next masterpiece</a>.</li><li>Know why you are writing and what you would like to accomplish. I view myself as a teacher. My passions are to learn and to teach, so I view my writing as an extension of these passions. That is why I try to achieve synergy between my teaching and my writing on Medium. I do this by writing and publishing articles based on the lectures and seminars I have recently taught. In other words, I combine my teaching and my Medium journeys together to achieve a cross-pollination between these two domains.</li><li>Do not compare yourself to established and accomplished authors on Medium. Reading stories on how they made thousands of pounds and then pitying yourself is not fruitful. Comparison to other writers will not propel you forward in your thinking or writing. Compare your success now to where you were six months ago — then you can understand your progress. This is your journey alone — stop comparing yourself to others. Be compassionate to yourself — it takes time to find your voice. Take a long-term perspective — stop expecting quick returns and view this as a marathon.</li><li>Make sure you write every day and do not break the chain. Treat writing like a proper job, not only a hobby. Do not wait for inspiration to start your writing. If you wait for inspiration, you will write once a week, maybe. Inspiration follows hard work and you need to put in your hard work first. Writing is hard work and it takes a lot of self-discipline -especially when you do not want to write. The toughest part is to get started and sitting down to write. The first five to 15 minutes might suck — hang in there and you will have your momentum after 20 minutes!</li><li>Procrastination is your biggest enemy and it kills your writing dreams. If you tell yourself, “One day, I will write my first blog post on Medium”, that day will never come. You have to start right now — and I mean in the next ten seconds. You need to take a small action right away. You can sign up for an account and join the Medium Partner Program in just a couple of minutes. Just do it. And then write your first article and publish it right away. Your article does not need to be perfect, you just need to put it out there. Do not wait for the perfect time — the perfect time is now.</li><li>Write about the topics that make you excited to your bones. Watch how your body reacts to an idea you ponder. If you are curious, passionate, or intrigued, this will show up in your writing. Your feelings are your fuel — make good use of them and articulate them in your stories.</li><li>You will write so much better if you shut down your critical voice. Remember you can always edit your piece later on. While you are writing something new, it is OK to follow your subconscious, your dreams, and your emotions. Blue-sky writing is so fun that you need to do it more often. Trust your intuition, not your inner critical voice. Give yourself the joy of crappy drafts.</li><li>Whenever you have a new idea for a new article, record it immediately. Give it a title that will inspire you. Try to write the introduction or create the outline if y

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ou can. Choose a picture that captures the spirit of your piece. Good ideas will escape you if you do not act on them immediately.</li></ol>9. Develop new ideas, titles, and abstracts every day. Ideally, try to have as many article drafts as you can in your Medium folder.<figure id="e1ee"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*2i6GpDnWuLCW6CI6e6OQeQ.png"><figcaption>Image by Author</figcaption></figure>As you can see here, I currently have 481 drafts in my Medium folder. I might not be able to write them all — but that is not the point.Japanese have the concept of Tsundoku — having so many books that you will never get to read them. Tsundoku is good because it inspires and provokes you to read more. You are aware of your limitations and you are more open to learning. Similarly, having too many drafts in your Medium folder will inspire you to write and create more. You will not face the empty white page and you will never run out of ideas.10. Follow your strong emotions and incorporate them into your story. Good storytelling happens when you pour your heart, voice, and enthusiasm into a piece. Your personal story is what makes your writing compelling and unique. It makes you more relatable to the reader when you share your own life experiences, vulnerabilities, passions, fears, and curiosities.11. Cultivate your own voice. What makes your perspective unique? If you just be yourself, you will not have any competition. You are the only you in the world and readers are interested in your story. Do not try to imitate others or try to be anyone else. They are already taken. You need to be the best version of yourself — that’s it.12. When you have your muse, dive in and enjoy the ride. Creativity has its own rules and sometimes it feels as if you have jumped to an alternate universe. You write fast, you forget your sense of time, and you are fully immersed in what you do. Enjoy these joyful moments when you can. There will also be moments of agony where you cannot even write a clear sentence and you will find your work appalling. If you hang in there and persist in those moments, you will have better moments of creativity and productivity.13.The biggest game of your life is creating your own creative assets in your life. There are fascinating articles that only you can bring to the world. Fresh, exciting, and original pieces of writing. What are they? How can you take a small action now? How can you continue taking small steps every day? How can you continue your adventure every day without quitting and without breaking the chain?14. Remember that you need to create at least 300 or 400 Medium articles before you quit. Treat each article as a different experiment and learning adventure. Many of these experiments will fail and you need to be prepared for lots of failures. Provide yourself hundreds of opportunities for failure and experimentation. Among hundreds of these failures, there will be a few pieces that will shine through, beat the algorithms, and go viral. Although virality is often accidental, you can increase your chances if you do a lot of experiments.15. Start writing today, use your imagination, write every day, do not break the chain, hit publishing, and repeat these actions for a couple of years — you will enjoy tremendous results if you hang in there and do not give up.<h2 id="bb5a">Fahri Karakas is the author of Self-making Studio. You can explore more here.</h2></article></body>

What I Learned From Publishing 250 Articles on Medium

15 Biggest Lessons On Writing and Content Creation

In this article, I would like to share my reflections with you on having published 250 articles. I will also share with you the 15 biggest lessons I have learned as a result of my journey.

My journey on Medium is the journey of a tortoise, not a hare. Everything is progressing slowly, but I love the journey.

Before I start analyzing, let me start with some basics. Right now, I have 754 followers. My monthly views have jumped to more than 18,000 views for the first time. I have been selected a top writer in Future, Art, Books, Innovation.

My earnings have also increased. These figures may not be impressive, but they still represent a trajectory of consistent growth.

I like to think of this investment as my Medium shop. I do have 250 articles on my shelves, so it is like a small business. This is surely a long-term investment and it would be wrong to expect quick returns. I am still learning the art and craft of writing, and trying to find my own voice.

I have started writing regularly on Medium towards the end of March 2020. Previously, I reflected on what I learned from publishing articles on Medium, and you can find the complete series below (to see my whole journey and trajectory until now):

What I learned from publishing 100 articles on Medium (July 2020)
What I learned from publishing 150 articles on Medium (September 2020)
What I learned from publishing 175 articles on Medium (October 2020)
What I learned from publishing 200 articles on Medium (December 2020)
What I learned from publishing 222 articles on Medium (January 2021)
An Analysis of My Articles Which Generated More Than 1000 Views

15 Biggest Lessons I Have Learned

So, what did I learn from my journey until now? Here are my reflections on publishing 250 articles and going forward:

Give yourself time and do not be discouraged if your published articles do not get enough views and reads. The great majority of my published articles were initially downright failures, but some of them have eventually achieved traction after many weeks, even months. Instead of obsessing over your metrics and statistics, spend your time to create your next masterpiece.
Know why you are writing and what you would like to accomplish. I view myself as a teacher. My passions are to learn and to teach, so I view my writing as an extension of these passions. That is why I try to achieve synergy between my teaching and my writing on Medium. I do this by writing and publishing articles based on the lectures and seminars I have recently taught. In other words, I combine my teaching and my Medium journeys together to achieve a cross-pollination between these two domains.
Do not compare yourself to established and accomplished authors on Medium. Reading stories on how they made thousands of pounds and then pitying yourself is not fruitful. Comparison to other writers will not propel you forward in your thinking or writing. Compare your success now to where you were six months ago — then you can understand your progress. This is your journey alone — stop comparing yourself to others. Be compassionate to yourself — it takes time to find your voice. Take a long-term perspective — stop expecting quick returns and view this as a marathon.
Make sure you write every day and do not break the chain. Treat writing like a proper job, not only a hobby. Do not wait for inspiration to start your writing. If you wait for inspiration, you will write once a week, maybe. Inspiration follows hard work and you need to put in your hard work first. Writing is hard work and it takes a lot of self-discipline -especially when you do not want to write. The toughest part is to get started and sitting down to write. The first five to 15 minutes might suck — hang in there and you will have your momentum after 20 minutes!
Procrastination is your biggest enemy and it kills your writing dreams. If you tell yourself, “One day, I will write my first blog post on Medium”, that day will never come. You have to start right now — and I mean in the next ten seconds. You need to take a small action right away. You can sign up for an account and join the Medium Partner Program in just a couple of minutes. Just do it. And then write your first article and publish it right away. Your article does not need to be perfect, you just need to put it out there. Do not wait for the perfect time — the perfect time is now.
Write about the topics that make you excited to your bones. Watch how your body reacts to an idea you ponder. If you are curious, passionate, or intrigued, this will show up in your writing. Your feelings are your fuel — make good use of them and articulate them in your stories.
You will write so much better if you shut down your critical voice. Remember you can always edit your piece later on. While you are writing something new, it is OK to follow your subconscious, your dreams, and your emotions. Blue-sky writing is so fun that you need to do it more often. Trust your intuition, not your inner critical voice. Give yourself the joy of crappy drafts.
Whenever you have a new idea for a new article, record it immediately. Give it a title that will inspire you. Try to write the introduction or create the outline if you can. Choose a picture that captures the spirit of your piece. Good ideas will escape you if you do not act on them immediately.

9. Develop new ideas, titles, and abstracts every day. Ideally, try to have as many article drafts as you can in your Medium folder.

As you can see here, I currently have 481 drafts in my Medium folder. I might not be able to write them all — but that is not the point.

Japanese have the concept of Tsundoku — having so many books that you will never get to read them. Tsundoku is good because it inspires and provokes you to read more. You are aware of your limitations and you are more open to learning. Similarly, having too many drafts in your Medium folder will inspire you to write and create more. You will not face the empty white page and you will never run out of ideas.

10. Follow your strong emotions and incorporate them into your story. Good storytelling happens when you pour your heart, voice, and enthusiasm into a piece. Your personal story is what makes your writing compelling and unique. It makes you more relatable to the reader when you share your own life experiences, vulnerabilities, passions, fears, and curiosities.

11. Cultivate your own voice. What makes your perspective unique? If you just be yourself, you will not have any competition. You are the only you in the world and readers are interested in your story. Do not try to imitate others or try to be anyone else. They are already taken. You need to be the best version of yourself — that’s it.

12. When you have your muse, dive in and enjoy the ride. Creativity has its own rules and sometimes it feels as if you have jumped to an alternate universe. You write fast, you forget your sense of time, and you are fully immersed in what you do. Enjoy these joyful moments when you can. There will also be moments of agony where you cannot even write a clear sentence and you will find your work appalling. If you hang in there and persist in those moments, you will have better moments of creativity and productivity.

13.The biggest game of your life is creating your own creative assets in your life. There are fascinating articles that only you can bring to the world. Fresh, exciting, and original pieces of writing. What are they? How can you take a small action now? How can you continue taking small steps every day? How can you continue your adventure every day without quitting and without breaking the chain?

14. Remember that you need to create at least 300 or 400 Medium articles before you quit. Treat each article as a different experiment and learning adventure. Many of these experiments will fail and you need to be prepared for lots of failures. Provide yourself hundreds of opportunities for failure and experimentation. Among hundreds of these failures, there will be a few pieces that will shine through, beat the algorithms, and go viral. Although virality is often accidental, you can increase your chances if you do a lot of experiments.

15. Start writing today, use your imagination, write every day, do not break the chain, hit publishing, and repeat these actions for a couple of years — you will enjoy tremendous results if you hang in there and do not give up.