What Medium Is Doing For My Writing That Blogging Couldn’t

And Also How Chet Morton is My Literary Spirit Animal

Question:

What do Chet Morton of The Hardy Boys, Toad of The Wind in the Willows, and Richard Carstone of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House have in common?

Answer:

1. They are all literary figures who become passionate about one thing after another but can’t seem to commit to any of them,
2. I identify with each of them far more than I care to admit (especially Chet — and I think I need a sandwich now).

I have been an aspiring musician, an aspiring music historian, an aspiring illustrator, and of course, an aspiring author. It’s never been that I wasn’t willing to work — it’s just that every time I find something that I think I’m just destined to do, I discover a consuming passion for something, well, totally different.

I talked in my last post about experiencing the epiphany that perhaps I was not a fiction writer after all, and how it freed me to eventually discover that perhaps I was a non-fiction writer.

Why I Stopped Trying to Write Fiction

I briefly toyed with the idea of starting a blog. My experience with blogging at this point had been two failed attempts at fiction-themed blogs, both of which had sputtered out soon after their inception. I wanted to try again, but this time giving myself permission to let go of fiction and explore non-fiction writing. I was immediately faced with a daunting dilemma: what was this blog going to be about?

Here is a list, by no means exhaustive and in no particular order, of things I have found myself obsessed with in the last year or two:

1. Anything about Russia
2. The history of eugenics in America
3. Election 2016
4. All the different kinds of toilet options available now for tiny homes, and their pros and cons
5. Natural childbirth
6. Marni Nixon and the history of playback singing in Hollywood
7. Trebuchets

And that’s just a tiny sampling. There are just far too many interesting things in the world.

Deciding on one unifying theme, no matter how broad, for my writing, was absolutely terrifying. At the same time, I was turned off by the “random thoughts” blogs where the reader never knew what was coming. I didn’t want to lure my readers in with something they were interested in only to never touch that subject again and bore them with things that just weren’t their cup of tea.

Before even starting, blogging demanded that I choose a direction for my writing that I could not only stick with for more than 3 months, but one that would actually draw readers. That’s a lot of commitment for a shot in the dark.

Thankfully, I discovered Medium (trigger warning: infomercial).

Here is what Medium is doing for my writing that blogging could not have:

1. Medium Allows Me to Observe My Writing

For the last few months, I have been writing regularly on Medium, on whatever subject that seems most compelling on that particular day. I now have a sample from which to observe what sorts of things interest me most, what subjects I write best on, and what kinds of themes tend to recur in my writing. The more I grow this sample, the better I can answer questions like, “What exactly do I want my writing to achieve?” and “Just what kind of a writer to I want to be?”, without putting my readers through the frustration of following a blog that sometimes interests them but often doesn’t.

In other words: I don’t have to bore you with my long, meandering tale of self-discovery (unless you just like long, meandering tales of self-discovery).

2. Medium Allows Me to Observe My Readers

Any writer who is putting their content somewhere the public can see it, but claims that they don’t care whether people read it or not, is lying. I write to be read, otherwise I would just write in my journal.

Even though I use the term “self-indulgent” to describe my publication, I have strong feelings on the subject of self-indulgence in art. I believe that an artist’s passion must be tempered with a genuine desire to use their medium to connect with other human beings. I don’t want to write merely to get something out of my system (although it certainly does often serve that purpose), I want to give my readers something that resonates with them. That is what elevates art above a hobby. Nobody is entitled to an audience — at least not until we come to the point of appointing an art Czar who tells people what they should and shouldn’t like (a job which I will certainly put myself forward for should it ever materialize). As a writer, the burden is on me to engage.

On Medium, I can write on any subject that pops into my head, explore any form and any type of voice, throw it all up against the wall and see what sticks. What kind of content spoke to my audience? What kind of voice was the most persuasive? What made them click, then stick around to read and maybe even recommend and comment? When does my writing speak to my readers?

3. Medium Allows Me To Find the Sweet Spot

Avoiding both the temptation for self-indulgence (writing however I want and then being angry that I’m not getting an audience), and the temptation to sell out (abandoning passion and personal ethic and writing merely to generate clicks), involves having the humility to find the sweet spot.

Where do my passion and my audience’s interest intersect?

It’s a question I’m still answering, but Medium is helping.