Why is Medium so hard to write for

Over at Blogger, with varying regularity, I’ve written a blog since 2009. More than one in fact, some short-lived on a theme and others more long-lived.

Posting was never a problem. One was about my son’s leukaemia, bone marrow transplant and subsequent operations to remove stomach and brain tumours.

My main one concerned my journey as a transgender female through the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and life in general. Being a runner, triathlete and not quite professional burlesque performer provided plenty to write about.

An online writing prompt group has also given me the opportunity to work at developing my writing skills.

So lots of practice.

This year I reached a point where I felt I had nothing more to say concerning my journey, and that anything else I wrote would detract from what had gone before. Hearing about Medium I decided that this might be a good way to continue writing.

Publishing on here has been so much harder.

Commenting on other people’s work has been easy. Publishing my own work, not so much.

The last post on my blog received comments from people telling me they hoped I wouldn’t disappear completely because they enjoyed what I wrote, even to the point it helped them with their own journey.

Sitting down at the keyboard and writing something for Medium has been difficult. Partly, I feel, because I have a tendency to want what I’ve written to be just right, but also because I wonder if what I have to say will be interesting enough.

Write what you know is advice, classic advice. Use your experiences. That’s certainly something I could do.

As a parent of a young man who has been in hospital all his life, born prematurely with neurofibromatosis, chest infection his first Christmas that necessitated a hospital visit, leukaemia by his second, there’s plenty of experience there.

As a transgender female who is never going to be able to truly leave their past behind, without uprooting and starting over where people don’t know me, there’s a lot to draw upon there too.

In the last 5 months my creative side has been coming much more to the forefront and I have been writing a piece about that. Three versions in and I just can’t get it to say what I want, how I want it. Writing for my blog would have seen it unleashed on the world long ago.

I know that Medium will be a good experience for me. Writing pieces to publish here will stretch me, force me to step outside my comfort zone.

Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve spent so long focusing on some things that I’m actually scared to take risks, to put myself out there and risk being criticised and rejected.

Maybe it’s that writing for my old blog was so easy because there was only my work published on it so nothing to compare against.

Or maybe it’s that the people that are writing on here are so good that my efforts pale by comparison.

Whatever the reason Medium is so much harder to write for than I thought. But that’s good isn’t it.