Notes On Making Medium Work for Me (and How You Can Make It Work for You)

This whole Medium thing has been a trip and a half so far for one very simple reason. I've been earning a full-time living writing for many years at this point, but as anyone who's been here long knows, I'm a ghostwriter. I've probably penned hundreds of thousands of successful words for my clients (or so I've been told.)

Meanwhile, my personal writing done under my real name has mostly gone unnoticed. I had a decent-sized audience of fellow kooks on LiveJournal back when people still wrote over there, as well as on DeviantArt during my brief stint as a fantasy artist, but that's about it. Beyond that, though, I've simply gotten used to being an unknown and just doing whatever it is that I do for my own pleasure and not much else.

I sincerely didn't expect Medium to be very different from any of that when I first signed up for their partner program toward the end of last year. I knew my experience writing for the web likely meant I'd do OK over there, but I didn't expect to truly get any attention or earn any real money. Perhaps just a few loyal readers who didn't mind listening to my drivel, just like on LiveJournal, and maybe a couple of hundred extra bucks to help out with bills now and then. That profile blew up quick, though.

Yes, I'm earning for sure, and I'm getting a lot of praise for my work. I'm also getting a lot of mail from strangers who want to know more about me and -- in some cases -- learn how to do whatever it is that I'm doing these days. Companies are messaging me, begging me to mention them in future Medium posts, sometimes in exchange for money (which I don't do, by the way.) People are adding me to their networks, hoping I'll lay some more golden eggs for them to discover and take with them in their travels. It doesn't quite seem real, and I am most definitely not used to it.

On How Retail Prepared Me for My Career as a Writer

Le Principe du Plaisir - Rene Magritte (1937)

A friend of mine was posting on her Instagram earlier all about the twisty, winding path she's taken in life to get where she currently is. Today, she has her own highly successful wedding photography business, but years ago, when I first met her, she was a waitress.

In her post, she talked a bit about why she was a waitress for so many years despite hating the job -- the easy money and the way food service requires you to "hustle" a bit for your supper. She also touched on how being a waitress back then prepared her in many ways for what she's doing now, as the two businesses are a lot more alike than they probably seem at surface value. 

It got me thinking back on the many years I spent in retail. Aside from an extremely brief period of less than a year where I worked as a vet tech, pretty much all of the traditional time clock jobs I've had were ordinary retail jobs that are a dime a dozen. Like my friend, I absolutely loathed what I was doing, and just thinking about doing it for the rest of my life depressed the shit out of me. I don't know that I'd be as good at working for myself (or at writing) as I am without that as part of my background, though.