How I really feel about Medium
I would like to start by saying that Medium is an extremely impressive community of talented writers, critical thinkers, literary creatives, and motivated entrepreneurs.
I appreciate you all. Give yourselves a pat on the back for being awesome.
This growing community has inspired and driven me to actively pursue my writing career far more seriously than ever. Medium presents a fresh way for writers to connect, share, and expose their ideas directly to people who actually give a shit. This can be clearly seen in the way replies are presented as separate stories and the amount of topically dedicated publications Medium touts. Everyone genuinely appreciates the opinions of their peers, and has something to add with their own unique point of view — not to mention the community is free of trolls (as far as I know at least).
Medium is one big pool of conversations where anyone can chime in, no matter your expertise. I like that. Needless to say, my experience here has been more than positive. And because of all this, I’ve decided to make Medium my primary writing sanctuary, as I’m sure many of you have.
But that’s just half of it.
The other half of the time, I feel intimidated, hesitant, and out of place.
After joining Medium, I began to see a lot of writing. Not writing from people who were in the professional literary or journalistic positions where I one day hope to be, but writing from people just like me — aspiring writers, entrepreneurs, and startupers just starting out, trying to get their feet off the ground, find their voice, and build an audience.
Medium pointed out that there are millions of writers out there trying to accomplish the same thing I am. This realization sank deeper once I joined the Pomqa slack channel. Yes, we’re all in the same boat. Trying to create, explore, critique, and explain ideas to the best of our ability. But there was something about connecting with other writers in real time that made me realize that I’m a little fish in an Internet-sized pond. How do I stand out?
Medium is a vast landscape of words, sentences, paragraphs, and their writers. The sheer amount of high-quality writing on here is staggering and significantly overwhelming. I don’t think I’ve read anything on Medium that I would consider poor writing, which makes me doubt my own writing abilities. With this volume of quality, it’s very difficult not to compare your own writing to that of your peers.
Is my writing good enough to express my ideas among my many well written peers?
This self-doubt leaves me at a loss for formulating and organizing my own ideas. It feels like everything I want to say has been said in every way possible, and because of this, coming up with a unique point of view seems unusually difficult.
And the stats. It’s hard not to keep track of them. Of course, I want to see how well my latest piece is doing. But then I see other stories by your peers with at least 100 more recommends. Are my stories not good enough? What am I doing wrong? And the top stories on the front page, in my face, every time I open Medium. Rubbing it in. Am I too thirsty?
I also want to point out that it seems like everyone on Medium fits into one of two categories—
- Experimental creative.
- Market-y entrepreneur.
This leaves me wondering where I fit best. I’m not really the most creative of the bunch, but I’m not too keen on entrepreneurship either. I like to have an aspect of creativity in my writing. I also want my message to be as clear and concise as that of the marketers, but not so much as to jeopardize the craftiness of the craft if that makes sense. I want to be unique, yet relatable, which I feel is somewhere in between the two. It’s hard to find a voice when you’re kind of torn between the two.
People say the best way to get better at writing is to write. That’s how you find your voice. But what if you’re just so overwhelmed with writing, that writing itself becomes a dreaded chore? Or worse, something you’ve forgotten how to do.
I’m probably just over-thinking this. Over analyzing has always been a strong suit of mine. Or maybe these are the effects of being too connected and oversaturated with information. Maybe I need to take a break and come back refreshed, focused and ready to write. Whatever it is, I know I’ve fallen off my game.
I’m not saying that I blame Medium for the problem, but I am saying that Medium is part of the problem.
If you have similar feelings about Medium, completely different feelings, or just feelings about writing online in general, leave a response below. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
If you like what you read, please recommend and share it with others by using the ❤ button below. Clayton writes Letters from an Internet Traveler, the newsletter that delivers intriguing, thought-provoking Internet tidbits and obscurities to your inbox. Find out more about Clayton and his writing at claytonwrites.com.
