What My First Year On Medium Helped Me Realize About Writers
Including me
It’s been one year since I started writing on Medium. This is an important moment because I told myself: I will try for one year, and then decide if I should go on, or quit.
The first months were complicated and frustrating: I found it hard to choose pictures, decide what to write, edit — which took me a very long time. Every little step was a great achievement to me, or a disappointing experience. Yet I continued, and I was able to increase the number of articles I write every week, and I went from one to four or five.
I think the most interesting part of the journey was discovering some aspects of the personality of most writers whose articles I read every day, and I am happy I found them in myself, too. It means I am on the right path!
Here are some.
Resilience is the first characteristic I discovered in them, and I liked it. Like other writers, I went on and was not deeply affected by failures, which made me feel stronger. I felt I was not alone in my struggle.
Consistency is the second. Inspired by many articles I read, I planned to create a regular work, I checked it every week, and it worked. Medium helped me realize that I can commit to a plan I am interested in, that I don’t give up easily. Actually it’s easy to give up since the results don’t come easily.
Patience is the third quality I found in many writers, and in myself. Working, trying and getting no results. Writing and publishing an article that nobody reads. Numbers that don’t improve, no money — but that’s just my experience.
After one year, I am proud of myself for consistently continuing to try, for never giving up despite the disappointments we all go through. For reading other writers’ articles and trying to put in practice their advice.
Support and trust. I guess these feelings are shared by a lot of people. On Medium I met wonderful people who are so nice to read and comment my pieces. I love them all, they are helping me a lot with my writing and allowing me to open up, which is not an easy step for an introvert like me. I trust them and I found their friendship is a special gift in my life, actually I always write about it on my gratitude journal!
Yet, I expected more out of my efforts. By today, I planned to have published more articles, have more followers, have made more money. I am often a very realistic person, so I was not expecting too much: I can see that other writers on Medium could do it.
I could have worked harder, tried different ways, improved faster, learned faster from my mistakes, and have abandoned earlier this plateau I am in now, with the same number of articles, and same amount of little money made every month.
So, I decided I will go on for another year, I might write less regularly since I am back to work in the office and I spend a lot of my free time on public transportation. All successful writer on Medium say you need to be consistent and not to give up, and that’s something I can do, at least until March 2023.
Thank you to all the great writers who encourage me and inspire me with their work. I am still here because of you.
Yana Bostongirl Sahil Patel Liberty Forrest, Author Art Bram Trista Signe Ainsworth Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles Winston Vishnu*s Virtues Liam Ireland Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 Umme Salma BichoDoMato Donnette Anglin Pene Hodge Dr. Preeti Singh Umme Salma Diana Meresc Tamil Sandra Pawula Justiss Goode A Rustic Mind (Manali Desai) Esther George Jessica Lynn Lanu Pitan Boateng Sekyere Shameem Anwar Sharing Randomly Kris Bedenian Jan Sebastian
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