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| Untitled by Vincente Romero |
So, I finally heard back about my application to Medium's new fellowship program. I did indeed get in, so once I receive my contract and get that all signed, I can expect a nice little minimum payment guarantee for August, September, and October. That's great because the more I can count on making through their platform every month, the more time I can actually justify spending over there.
As always seems to be the case with every online platform, many writers have their gripes with Medium, but I've really been pretty happy with my experience so far. The type of writing I like to do is exactly the type of writing that does well there. I've been flexing my blogging muscles more often and can tell they're getting stronger, as I've been finding it easier to post really engaging content more frequently. And much to my surprise, I even seem to fit into the community there, and fitting in has never been something that came easily to me.
Medium also announced a big Vocal-style writing contest to close out the summer a few days ago. There are four prompts, four hefty cash prizes, an even heftier grand prize that will go out to one lucky writer, and a generous handful of smaller honorable mention payouts. I don't really kid myself that I will actually win anything, but I'm still looking forward to participating. The prompts are all totally my speed and sound like a blast to work with. Plus, you never know. Somebody wins those things.
Granted, it's taken me most of my life, but it's been nice to find things to do with my time and my talents that actually inspire a little healthy competitiveness in me. I was considered very gifted as a child and allegedly had a genius-level IQ, but I hated everything about it -- especially the way I was expected to enjoy competing with other kids for so-called honors that didn't mean anything to me. In some cases -- as with scholarships, apprenticeships, and opportunities to be shipped away to summer school in some other state -- I actively didn't want whatever the prize was. (Anything that added up to being ripped away from my home and being given a ton of extra work to do honestly felt more like a punishment than a reward.)
