Here for One Another: A Medium Metric That Isn’t Tracked
Those of us bloggers who have been with Medium for a little bit — and even those who just showed up a few minutes ago — are here for one another.
We’re here to share our stories. Of course we are. If we didn’t have something that we had to write, had to share, we wouldn’t be here.
For the majority of us, we are here to share all stories. We want to read, react and respond, to tell those in our real life about what we read on Medium, send links, buy books, subscribe to newsletters.
We want more than just the words on the screen.
We want more than reports of views, likes, and followers.
We want our stories to have mattered.
Maybe it’s only for ourselves in gathering them together and publishing. Maybe it goes further on, for a particular person or people or community. But we want our words — and therefore, ourselves to have mattered.
We don’t have to be specific or consistent about how we want our stories to have mattered. Sometimes it might be for a burst of laughter, a flash of recognition of something downright human. Other times, we might aim for poignant, to summon tears or outrage or both. And yet, for some of us storytellers, we want to put the words on the page so that we know what we think, to play for awhile with ideas and characters or follow them where they lead. For me, many days, I think it would be a wondrous thing for a person to have forgotten their troubles and smiled or shaken their head or for one tiny amount of time to be another place than their own misery or confusion or heartache.
We want to have mattered.
For just over a year, I have posted everyday on Medium. About the only thing that has been consistent is the posting: I’ve done flash fiction, poetry, short pieces and longer, played with fiction, shared the ruckus in my head.
However, stubbornly and faithfully, more faithful than most things I do, I have posted something. It’s been a joy and a challenge, and both most days.
I keep track of different metrics than Medium does. I do keep a distant eye on the typical measures, but now I’m much more interested in engagement, in responding and reacting to other readers and writers.
In this just-over-a-year of regular blogging, I have had the pleasure of meeting Anna Sabino in person and being privileged to read her excellent book Your Creative Career before most everyone. I have dived deep into A. McGuire’s unbelievable prose, flowing sinuous and easy like the most natural outcome in the world instead of the learned, hard, considered work that it may or may not be — and I extend my heartiest congratulations to her on achieving 1,000 followers on Medium — excellent content and intelligent response and generosity do count! Beyond the words that I so enjoy, there is Enrique Fiallo’s excellent medical results — so a terrific writer is freed to live, to work, to enjoy more life. Shining strong and bright is Kris Loomis, releasing a book about revising her fascinating The Sinking of Bethany Ann Crane — the book about the revison including posts that were first shared here on Medium. And, and, and, there are countless others, so many writers who have brightened, illuminated, cheered, expanded, brought me to slack-jawed wonder about human experience and the power of words and of story to transform.
Inspired by Enrique but nowhere near as organized, I celebrate contributions from Stephen Leatherdale and Dan Belmont and Andrew Westcott and Danielle Bernock and Danielle Nolan and Pat Aitcheson and Christine Costa and Paula Dotson Frew and Zarina Braybrooke and Lily King and Donna Story Pailor and Tess Wheeler and Lisa Wilton and Tina Lear who is in Tibet right now and owes us many more stories when she can get a connection. All of you and so many, many more writers, I read you every day — or as often as I can if my characters are acting up. I cherish what you share and I am awed by how you bring your art, all that is best that you have to share with the rest of us eager readers.
Oh, wait. Then there is Vico Biscotti and Little Fears and Jessica Wildfire and…oh, man, I am leaving people out. I don’t want to do that. I mean no disrespect.
And wait. Some more waiting needs to be done. What about the passionate and faithful readers, Jake and Stephen Tomic and Sand Farnia and all the others?
I had brain surgery. You gotta give me some space.
I did. I really did have brain surgery. Like 17 or 18 years ago. Congenital thing. Could have blown at any time. Chose to go at a time when the world was so configured that the right team and the right every everything was in place to make sure that I lived to write this bit. Even though, you know, only 10% of the folks who go through this particular thing get to be, you know, normal-ish kind of people. Just saying that you should be impressed that I can type. At all.
Only, that is no excuse. None at all. I’m fine, perfectly fine thanks to Dr. Robert Solomon and his team…and I am leaving more people out. What about the nurses and my roommate who loved chocolate and…
There is no ending the gratitude. There is no naming all the names, celebrating all the people in the right places at the right times to keep me from doing something stupendously stupid — and to support me in trying cool, new, interesting things.
So, by now, I should work my way back to this Medium tracking stuff.
I don’t track by numbers.
I track by ideas, by moments that move me, by repartee and engagement that remind me that I am not alone with this ruckus in my mind, that there are others out there who love story as much as I do, maybe even more, maybe even less.
It doesn’t matter. We’re all here for the story.
You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.
