I just posted my second story on Medium (Running man) and I’m excited about it. It feels good to put myself out there more, and it feels even better to really like the story I’m sharing. It’s a vulnerable piece though, and this makes me more than a little uneasy about publishing it on the web for anyone to see. But on the other hand, it’s so open and honest about stuff that really matters to me that it’s fucking liberating to get it off my chest.
Seriously, the more I open up when I write, the more I come to terms with who I am and put things behind me that I’ve wrestled with for years. Writing with an open heart allows me to go deeper into my feelings, to examine and better understand them, to heal and to grow.
Just like the first story I published on Medium (Slide shows way back then), I took one of my blog posts from the past and refined it to the point where I felt good about putting it out there on this much bigger platform with a much bigger audience. Even though my blog is technically accessible to anybody that can get on the internet, the fact is it gets few visitors. On Medium there’s a real possibility that a story can attract a legit following of readers that like what you’re doing, and that potential is thrilling.
Running Man is about me loving to dance and learning to dance as I struggle with all sorts of shame and embarrassment about it. As I got the story ready for Medium, I decided to add a GIF of me busting some dance moves in my backyard. I’m wearing a mask in the video so you can’t necessarily tell it’s me, but still, I can hardly believe I felt okay putting it in the story. I’m also really proud of myself for doing it. I added a main graphic for the piece too (that I created using DALL-E) that will show up alongside the title when people are searching Medium. It’s an impressionist style image of a guy dancing in front of a mirror. I’ve been told that stories with graphics get a lot more views, which makes sense in theory, but I got so few views on my first story that in my case the graphic clearly didn’t do much of anything from a readership perspective, but it looks cool, and it’s interesting how it adds some background feeling and context to the story, kind of like a film score.
One overall goal I have with my writing is to get it out there more so it’s read by more readers. I want to be part of an active community of people that love the written word and also take some interest in my work. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet with Medium. There’s just so much competition out there in terms of others writing and publishing lots and lots of material. I was expecting Medium to send readers my way but instead it turns out I drove the majority of the traffic to my first story myself (which wasn’t much) by texting links to a few friends and family.
The fact is I don’t want to push my stories out to people every time I publish something. That makes me too uncomfortable. Being vulnerable in my stories makes me very proud of them because I’m totally open and honest as I get to the heart of the matter. But being vulnerable also makes me not want to actively share them with the people I know. Why not? Well, because sometimes I’m a bit self conscious and embarrassed, and those feelings can be overwhelming. I don’t want to feel that way, but I do.
Regardless, I’ve learned a lot by posting on Medium even though my readership hasn’t expanded like I was hoping it would. So what did I learn?
I learned that I’ve got some stories I’m really proud of. I’ve also learned that some of these stories just need a little more polish to make them great (at least to me).
I’ve (re)learned that it’s fun to edit and refine a good piece of writing. It’s so hard to shape a story into something you like. But once you get there I find it thrilling to make each additional pass and improve the story incrementally every time I go through it.
I (re)learned that I love the excitement of publishing a story I’m proud of and excited to put out there. With my blog oftentimes I’m proud of the work but not necessarily excited to share it due to my self consciousness. And sometimes the stories just don’t turn out as good as I’d like them to be once published. I made an agreement with myself almost five years ago to publish a blog post each and every month with no exceptions, and some of them just aren’t fully resolved, or don’t go as far as I’d like them too, or they’re just not all that compelling. But the stories I post on Medium are “complete” and “finished” and it’s a great feeling to release them into the world.
I also learned a lot about Medium the platform. Like I said earlier, stories with pictures supposedly get more views, so I created an image for each of my stories using an AI image generator. I also noticed that Medium is filled to the brim with self help stuff, especially self help for writers. There are tons of articles looking to help you develop a writing practice or routine. There are methods explaining how to make money off your writing and lots of commentary on how to write the kind of stories people want to read. My issue here is that I don’t want to write about stuff like that. I want to write what I want to write! I also would love to find people that want to read the kinds of stories that I write, but the most important thing to me with writing right now is self exploration. It’s all about writing about what interests me. Finding an audience is a secondary and less important goal for me at this time.
So I’m going to keep at this. I hope I publish stories on Medium more often than once every five months (that’s how long it took between the posting of my first and second story), but we’ll see. I’d also love to submit some stories for publication and maybe I’ll put some energy into that in the second half of 2023.
Before I leave you today I’d like to share a little story from last week that moved me. I was putting my daughter to bed and setting up the white noise app that we put on every night to help her sleep. The app is on an iPad that sits by her bed and it dawned on me that the only thing we ever use that iPad for anymore is the white noise. This thing that was at the pinnacle of technological advancement just a few years ago that could perform lots and lots of functions extremely well is now a single use device for us. It’s still capable of doing everything it could when we first got it, but it won’t be used for any of that anymore because we now have newer devices for those functions. The older iPads can no longer support every app anymore either. The hardware just can’t handle the current demands. But there’s still a web browser, a camera, a texting app, and so much other stuff that literally blew people’s minds a decade ago.
Even though part of this is exciting because technological progress is exciting, I find it mostly sad. How many iPads are in a similar boat now? Millions, I’m sure. And think about how many millions and billions of other things are now obsolete that were the shiny new tools just a few short years ago. If you put them in a pile how many football stadiums would they fill up?
And why do we let this happen? Why have we become so seduced by the next new thing that we’re willing to discard extremely powerful machines that we just got? Why are we able to overlook the environmental cost so easily?
What would happen if we flipped the script on this and started using things for as long as possible? Consumption would probably plummet. Companies would probably see huge declines in revenue. And the larger economy would probably not react well in the short-term.
But don’t you think human happiness would go up? Wouldn’t the whole world feel better? I think so.
I know it’s not as simple as that. Money needs to flow for people to get paid so that they can put food on the table. But that doesn’t mean our current system is the best option either.
I am blessed with so much in my life. I have beautiful relationships, a healthy family and material comfort. I also feel tremendous stress and pressure to live up to society’s expectations.
Going forward I hope to focus a lot more on what I have than what I don’t, and to make the most of it. So much of what I want (and need) I already have!