100 Followers in Less Than a Month
How publications and the writers community helped me.
On the 19th of May I was ecstatic.
I had just garnered a following of Ten people. Ten people were interested in reading my stories. I was over the moon!
It gave me the courage to join a couple of publications and start submitting my stories.
The first publication was — What Is Love To You?
This is Robert Ralph’s publication where the rules are simple and the stories are centred around Love. I received some very emotional messages and responses to that story. It encouraged me to write from the heart. Marilyn Glover was also kind enough to mention this story in her Editor’s Pick for May, which was the most exciting part of the month for me.
The second publication was — The Orange Journal.
The editors Susie Pinon and Nicole Dake have been encouraging and left notes that were probably exhausting for them, but they still did it gently because it was my first time writing for their publication.
The third publication was — The Coffee Mic.
The editor Alex P. shares my love for coffee, and we had a lovely comment conversation about it.
The fourth publication is — MIDFORM.
The other publications bolstered my confidence, and I came across Dawn Smiles’ post about the Daily Write Challenge. I picked up the challenge and have been trying my best to write everyday. Megan Llorente, Claire Roberts and Corey Casey have left heartwarming notes on my stories. Their private messages have made my day more often than they know.
I’m writing as often as I can. The prompts are fantastic and make me think beyond what is obvious. Here’s the first story I wrote for MIDFORM as part of the challenge.
I have found the most supportive writer’s group through this Writer’s Challenge and I hope I can be as supportive of them as they have been of me.
The last, but definitely not the least, is a person not a publication — Indigo.
I came across her post asking people to join her ‘Read For Read Club’. This is another place where I discovered a genuinely engaged community of writers. They read, they clap, they comment and they engage. A LOT.
I have been featured in three lists by Indigo — 45, 72 and 101. The articles shared in these lists have had the most interaction by far and it is thanks to the R4R community.
Thank you Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Art Bram, Nan Hutton, ThD, Henrik Ståhl, Diren - the storyteller, Timothy Kincaid Natasha Nichole Lake, Justjulieandherblog, Rachel K. Gause, Elise Chidley and so many others for being a part of my medium community. I appreciate each and every one of you — the time you take to read my stories and to engage with them means the world to me.
Here’s a BIG Thank You for the love and encouragement. I write because I love it and I am grateful for the community that exists here.
That’s all folks.
I republished this post right now because I discovered I did the tagging incorrectly. I just learned how to do it properly.