— Thanks Medium!

What Success Is When Writing at Medium

What I learned about creativity and productivity during three years as a writer at medium.com

Creativity and productivity

If I am going to write something, I must dare to put words down on the paper, and I must dare to show it to someone. These are the first two conditions for successful creative writing, and both are necessary to fulfill: Creativity can exist inside me, but it does not help much if I do not get the words down on the writing surface, whether this is paper or a digital screen.

If I do not get started writing, it does not help, then nothing is produced, nothing that can testify that I had an idea and a creative moment where I formulated and developed ideas and thoughts about a topic.

An arena and a tool

Creativity and productivity go hand in hand. To be able to produce and publish something, we must have an arena for publishing what we have written, and we must have a tool. In my case, and the same goes for thousands of other writing people, this arena and this tool is medium.com.

There are many things that are good about the Medium tool and arena. Medium is a platform that is easily accessible, it is functional and easy to use, and it is almost free. Yes, in fact, it’s so free that many writers even make money writing on medium.com. Some even make a lot of money writing and publishing there.

The great thing about Medium is that you can get started in a matter of minutes. You have an easily accessible tool that allows you to create beautiful texts and you can publish the texts and see that they are read by readers. Most people who write and publish on medium.com probably experience that there are not very many who read their texts, but there is always someone who reads them, and there is always someone who reacts positively if the topic is interesting and the text is fairly good to read.

What characterizes a creative writer, perhaps, is that she uses the ideas and chances she gets, and is able to spin on the ideas that she tries to develop further with the help of the writing tool. I always try to formulate in the best possible way right away, but if it’s not good enough, I can always go back and correct what I have written. I can always change everything — headline, introduction, tags, image, paragraph breaks, content — so it does not matter if I see that the text is not the way I want it after the first, second or third writing session.

Readers

A current topic for many writers is whether anyone has read and appreciated what I have written. The author’s or writer’s anxiety about not being accepted, or not being well received, is perhaps something that is generally poorly focused on.

A new writer who, for example, is afraid of not being read, basically has extra obstacles that she must overcome in order to succeed with her writing.

Dare to write is the first challenge. Dare to start writing about something that is important to one is the first step, both towards productivity and towards success as a writer.

There are today an incredible number of talented people who write and publish, on Medium and in many other arenas, both digital and analog. People who want to write today have a lot of opportunities, both because almost everyone can write, and almost everyone has access to tools that help them develop into productive writers.

Today, it is easy for most people to take care of and control the entire process from writing idea to finished published text.What does it mean to have success with writing today?

What does it mean to be successful with writing today?

The answer to this question depends on the person answering. People may have completely different backgrounds and completely different assumptions that form the basis for the answer they give. Some authors will say, for example, that if I say that this text is a success, yes, then I must be able to see that I have had at least 100 or 500 or 1000 readers, or at least 1k claps preferably also at least 10 to 20 comments. This is to put the list very high. There are not very many authors today who regularly achieve such high numbers.

The answer to the question “What does it mean to be successful with writing today?” obviously depends on the respondent. Writers have completely different backgrounds and completely different assumptions that form the basis for the answer they give. Some writers — perhaps quite a few — will probably say that it is a success if the text gets at least 10 “fans”, at least four or five hundred claps and 3–4 comments. These feedbacks show that the text has been read and has been appreciated by several readers.

Another way of looking at this — a way that is more realistic for most writers, is to say that if I am read and if I see that someone appreciates what I have written, then I have achieved something with the text. I have achieved that someone reads the text and that I also experience that there is a sharing of thoughts and impressions.

Then we are at the core of what is so good about Medium, namely that Medium makes it easy for people to express themselves, process ideas and formulate thoughts, share this with readers and get feedback and maybe even start a dialogue.

Actually, it is to be counted as a success in a communication context if I reach another person with my text and message, is not it?

It is mass communication when we reach more people, but in principle it will be right to say that if I reach a reader, well then the writing work has had a positive function — for the reader and for me.

Claps

The vast majority of writers are interested in seeing how many claps they receive, and how many dollars they earn from writing on medium.com. A successful writer — one who has been successful and published many texts and who has received thousands of claps on many of his texts, an author who may have earned hundreds of dollars over the course of the month — yes, she is probably a successful author.

Of course, everyone who writes and publishes would like to see that they get many readers and that they get many claps and many dollars back for what they write. But it is absolutely not necessary that you should see it that way. I believe that if one is to survive and have a good time as a writer, one must only accept that success, it is something that is individual and that is different from person to person.

A success for me, it can be a text that I have worked with for half an hour, or for a few hours — sometimes even for a few days. It is a text that I am so happy with that I publish it, and after a few hours I can see that the text has found readers, and some of the readers have expressed that they liked the text. This is a close contact between different phases in the writing process that happens so quickly and immediately that I as a writer feel that there is meaning in what I do.

Today — and then

The progress in the world of writing and publishing becomes clear if we look back at how it was a few decades ago. Today, it does not require the same large amount of patience as was previously necessary when the text was to be written, edited, and sent by post to the editors, who were to open the letter, read and evaluate the text and give feedback on whether the text would be published a few days later in the publication. Today, with Medium, I take myself as the author of most of what happens in the process from idea to finished and published text.

Of course, everyone who writes and publishes texts would rather see that they get a lot of readers and that they get a lot of applause and good dollars for what they write. But it is absolutely not necessary that it should be so. I believe that if one is to survive and have a good time as a writer, one needs to shift focus away from the thoughts of success and concentrate on the creative process:

How can I best cultivate my talent and develop as a writer?

Mass training

This is where the important moment of mass training comes in. In writing, as in all other creative work, it is important to perform the craft frequently, preferably daily. Aiming to write daily, preferably also to publish daily if one sticks to shorter genres, can be a golden path to positive self-development as a writer. If one writes long texts, e.g. essays or articles, it often needs maturation and repeated adaptations, so then it is perhaps more realistic to publish only a few new texts a week, e.g. that one publishes a new text every other, or every third day on average.

At Medium, everyone can register for free with email and name, and create a profile. One can then write and publish texts, and in principle have access to all the most important functions on the platform.

If you want to make it possible to make money on your texts, you register as a paying member and pay 5 US dollars a month. Then you become a member of the Medium Partner Program. I have been doing this since February 2018, and have experienced this as an incredibly inspiring and rewarding journey, together with other co-authors that I have met here. During this time I have published over 900 stories on Medium, and every month I have received back at least five times the amount I have paid in membership fees. This is how it has gone with a profit for me — it has paid off financially to write and be a paying member.

The biggest gains

I still see the biggest gains in the writing process itself and everything that comes with it: - I develop myself as a writer. - I am intellectually active, something that is very good for the brain! - I can read unlimited amounts of constantly new articles, essay poems, etc. - I learn something new every day. - I get feedback from readers. - I constantly get inspired for new writing projects. - I fill my days with what are to the highest degree meaningful activities

- I’m never bored!

Medium.com is a good tool and a fantastic platform for us who want to read varied reading material and to develop ourselves as writers. I owe Medium a big thank you for publishing over 900 texts over the last three years. It’s a long way to go Medium.com’s merit that I have managed to develop as much as I have done as a writer in this time, so —

— thanks Medium!

All rights reserved. © Øivind H. Solheim , @oivind47, author of novels, poetry, articles, essays, short fiction and experimental writing. [email protected]