My Personal Panic Room
Why I Write on Medium
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I was taking an online writing course. It was my ass-backwards approach to writing full-time. Taking a class inched me closer to actually submitting my work to a publisher — my real work, not the fluff I’d been writing for American Baby and Woman’s World.
The teacher/guru gave what I now know to be typical advice to newbies: Pick a niche! Write your mission statement! Sync your marketing across all your channels! Use this formula to grow your followers!
I only understood about half of it, but it didn’t matter. Because the most important thing that happened in that course was that I met classmate Frank McKinley in the Facebook group, who told me to write on Medium.
I already had great respect for Frank, and his words tumbled me into a blinding panic. I’m not ready to write my real stories in public!
Write anything, he said. Everything. Whatever you think, whatever you feel. It’s Medium. It’s for writers. We’ll all learn together.
And it hit me: I didn’t want to be an influencer or a life hacker or social media maven. I didn’t want to be chained to a niche or attached to a point of view.
I wanted to write about parenting and relationships, politics and rage, racism and equality, fictional romance and real life drama, sex and drugs and rock and roll. I wanted to be funny and serious and real.
I wanted to be like the poet Ruth Stone, working her Vermont farm, plowing or weeding or planting, until she’d hear a whisper. A noise growing stronger and louder, until it was a mighty wind. She would gather up her skirts and run to the house as fast as she could, to find paper and pencil before the wind swept past.
There was a poem in the breeze, if she could only catch it and write it down. Sometimes, she was ready. And she would write furiously, getting all the words out of the wind. Sometimes she wasn’t ready, and she’d stand there in a helpless panic, watching the poem blow away. Ruth lived to be 96, and was still writing and farming until the end.
Medium became my personal panic room. Whenever I doubted myself or doubted my writing, Medium is where I’d come to find safety and validation and community, and the courage to try again.
I’ve met awesome people here; I’ve been mentored and guided by many, many generous artists, and I try to pay that forward with new writers I meet. It’s also an honor and a thrill to help steer and grow the coolest pub ever, P.S. I Love You, as its managing editor.
I publish in other markets, but I don’t ever see leaving Medium. Because more than I ever wanted fame or money, I want to be like Ruth Stone — to be 88 or 96 or 100 years old drinking scotch in my garden, and lift my face to the sky because I feel the wind picking up. I want to leap to my feet and take off down the mountain.
Running as fast as I can … running to catch my story in the wind.
On Medium, I can do that.
Thanks to Jk Mansi and James Finn.
