Attaining the Medium Goal I Never Thought I’d Reach
How a pipe dream suddenly became my world
When I first signed up to be a part of the Medium Partner Program and joined Stripe to help arrange my payment, I was asked to pledge a certain amount of my income to fight climate change. It was set up not only so that I could have the donations set at a specific percentage of my income, but to only kick in after I’d made a certain amount to begin with.
I didn’t expect that Medium would ever amount to very much for me. The truth is, I joined once in 2019, posted a singular article, and when it failed to find its audience, I gave up before I ever truly began. It wasn’t until March of 2022 that I started writing again in earnest on here.
In those intervening years, I found a grating job in journalism. But the editor could task me with whatever menial subjects they felt fit, and very rarely did those mesh with my interests. In those times where my voice as an author had an opportunity to poke through, the editor would take liberties with my work I would have never agreed to.
She’d bend pieces so completely that they’d contain different stances than the ones I’d written. By the time the finished product was published, with my name beside it, no less, my authorial voice had left the premises.
