What Is It Like to Be a 16-Year-Old Writer on Medium?
Good, bad, and the most exciting parts.
Sorry in advance if I break the ultimate rule of writing online: write for the readers. It’s too self-centric to be an article. Consider it a journal entry.
“I” appears more than 25 times in this article. Enjoy!
Before Medium
I started writing on Medium after my WordPress blog became a little too distracting to write on.
I had written 3–4 articles on WordPress and quit. It wasn’t much fun after the initial excitement faded away. I wrote some poetry on Twitter.
It was slow going and I would not write for months often. I was 14.
On a side note, I loved reading. Much of my time, apart from school, was spent reading science magazines, novels, monthly compendiums, and comics.
And then I discovered Medium.
Hello Medium!
I wrote my first article in July 2021. but I have deleted a couple of articles I had written before that too. This is my 200th article.
I came here to post some of my thoughts online; I stayed here for the vibrant community and great stories.
Writing has never been more fun. And more effortless. Thanks to Medium, I was able to be consistent in at least something I do. It's something I would be proud to look at.
I am 16 and it’s enthralling to just look at some of the earliest pieces I wrote. It’s so different now than it used to be in the initial days. So much better.
So what is it like to write on Medium for a 16-year-old?
Tl;dr — some days it feels like the best thing to do and on other days, you are so demotivated you will feel like deleting everything and going back to zero.
A lot of times when someone notices I am writing, their first question is almost the same: “what is the benefit of this?”
It’s so frustrating to even try to tackle that question. If it comes on a not-so-good day, it brings a whole fucking tsunami with itself.
But at the same time, writing is refreshing. Mornings feel worth waking up to get my fingers on the keyboard.
I don’t know exactly why I write. Simon Sinek has created enough FOMO that I need to figure it out soon.
This Diwali vacation will be enough. Let’s hope for the best.
P.S. I am going home after almost a year. Here is the post I wrote when I was coming here haha. Now it’s time to go back.
To read more personal stories that are borderline informal, follow SERENDIPITY.
