Medium Helped Me Find Pleasure in Writing Again

In just one year my attitude to writing has changed beyond recognition.

This week marks my happy one year anniversary with Medium. When I first discovered it I was amazed by the brilliant writers here sharing their ideas, often full of novelty and contravention, always engaging and absorbing. Since I was a child I loved to read and books were a large family budget item, so there is no wonder Medium felt like the perfect place for me to be.

Love of reading fueled my desire to express myself in the early teen years and I was trying myself in writing short stories, a bit of poetry, sometimes essays. I’ve never thought of pursuing writing as a career or make it a part of my life, but the process of pouring the words on paper, drawing pictures in my mind, imagining unimaginable situations was very fulfilling and gave me a chance to express myself. Introverted by nature, I did find more peace and comfort in books and in writing.

Unfortunately, my little attempts to shape words into meaningful sentences didn’t find a supportive environment in school and long story short — I lost all belief in my writing and opted for more practical activities. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming anyone for not discovering my talent, there might still not be any, or being too straightforward about my writing and the standards and comparison to others… For a bit more than a decade, I’ve put the idea of writing away, until September last year.

At first, the idea of writing on an open platform where everyone could read it seemed somewhat crazy to me. Do you sense my fear of being judged? At the same time, it did look like a safe place where people come specifically to express themselves and share their ideas with others (I did find out about the payments muuuuuch later).

Without any plan, I’ve decided to dip my finger in the water. “What’s the worst that can happen?”, I was asking myself and my mind was vividly painting very expressive pictures of shame, guilt, global disaster and basically the end of the world. Good news — I didn’t cause any catastrophes (at least that I know of) with my stories and found some encouraging and kind feedback.

Sharing your thoughts in writing gives a liberating feeling, probably because you can empty out your busy head on paper and focus on what matters. I found that the inner dialogue that I’ve always had in my mind can be transformed and shared with others, initiating an actual conversation. Whether or not my stories helped somebody, writing them helped me.

As a non-native English speaker, I’ve always been very concerned about grammar and spelling in the texts, rather than just focusing on ideas. Overcoming this prejudice towards my own writing was probably one of the biggest achievements during this year. You can probably find plenty of small errors and sentences that can be styled better, but I guess if you are understanding my ideas by now I’ve done a pretty good job.

At first writing, even 300 words felt like a painful task. Instead of notorious creative flow, my words were hardly pouring — more like rare droplets from the closed water tap. One year later I can tell you that I haven’t discovered any magic solution to apart from practice.

The more you write, the more you are able to get a better grasp of words and shape them in strong sentences. Add reading and learing from the best to it for more impact, but the core stays the same — Write. As. Much. As. You. Can. As. Often. As. You. Can.

If before I could hardly squeeze 300 words out of myself, suddenly 1000 didn’t seem like much of a deal. I started writing for my clients and they as well have noticed and commented on the improvement in quality and style of my writing. They even thought I had a voice!

I didn’t start enjoying writing again overnight. That feeling came back to me first as a feeling of a work well done, like when you are closing a book after reading the last chapter or cross out all tasks from the to-do list. Then there was a realisation that I no longer use writing just to clear my head, it became a conversation with myself and kind of responsibility to provide my readers with value. The compliments and appreciation confirmed that I was on the right way and sealed the deal.

I love how words fill in blank page. I love how every word has its own meaning and unique nuances to it. I love puns. I love how language shapes and transforms. I love that I can communicate my thoughts and ideas with you.

I get it, writing is scary. So are many other things. Instead of postponing it till the perfect moment to start that will never come — start today. And once you’ve started — keep going. Nothing beats consistency!

If you are interested in growing your audience and finding what topics speak best to them you should keep an eye on the level of engagement that your stories get. While views and claps are pretty much vanity metrics, read ration and comments can give you a good idea of how your writing is interacting with readers.

Stats can be distractive and don’t provide the exact overview of your writing. If a person didn’t clap but your ideas have moved them then your writing is worth it. The numbers are here to support the quality of your writing, not take over it. The stories that I’ve thought were not very interesting surprisingly did get a lot of attention. I’ve never understood why, but you can’t know exactly what, when and where will click with your reader.

Being passionate about something helps you to tap into that kind of excitement that keeps your finger flying over the keyboard (or pen over paper). Writing 300 words about Brussel sprouts? Torture. A casual 1500-word email to a friend about online marketing? Yes please, watch me do it.

Be prepared that what you hear might not always be praise. However, feedback is a fantastic opportunity to reflect on your writing and see the opportunity for improvement. That’s right, negative feedback is not there to bring you down and drag you through mud, it’s an indicator where you can do better. Once you realise that it becomes much easier to accept it and move forward.

It just doesn’t exist (unless it’s created by nature I guess), so stop pursuing it and focus on having it good and enjoying the process on the way and who knows, when you let go of that suffocating need for excellence you might actually create something great.

Progress doesn’t happen overnight and being impatient doesn’t speed up the process. If you are dying to see the results look back and see how far you’ve come already. Even if your steps are small, all together they will bring you to your goal, just keep it consistent.

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