Medium: retrospective
2022: The Year That Was
Looking back on two months of frenzied writing
October
I joined Medium and laid out my plan: to write a 50,000 word novel during National Novel Writing Month, publishing on Medium as I went.
I had only the barest outline of a theme and very little idea of a plot. I wrote two articles in October, both anticipating the work and potential rewards to come.
November
On average I published almost two stories a day in November. 57 distinct stories, most of them chapters in my ongoing novel.
I soon got into a routine. I was actually writing the novel in Medium, transferring each completed chapter to Scrivener. I’d set up a framework of navigation, allowing readers a link to the previous chapter before reading this one, a link to the next chapter when they finished, and finally a link to an article containing links to the whole novel, chapter by chapter, in order.
Once I had enough — a hundred words or so — I’d publish the incomplete chapter and continue on until it was done. There was very little room for revision and backtracking. I changed the names of a couple of important characters and had to go back to fix all of those mentions and I think there is still a mention of Macchiavelli’s The Prince that I took out of subsequent chapters but haven’t gotten around to finding the first instance yet.
(Excellent text on intrigue, survival and advancement in a society of nobility, but quite at odds with the liberal Christian theme of my novel, as I quickly discovered.)
Chapter by chapter, day by day, my word count built up and the novel progressed. The characters began leading lives of their own and a theme and a plot developed in detail.
By the time I reached the end of the month and my fifty-thousand-word target it was quite clear that I still had another fifty thousand words before I filled out a whole novel in terms of plot structure.
Nevertheless, I had reached the target. December and January will — I trust — see me actually finish a first draft of my novel, to be published later that year.
December
Understandably I felt I needed to slow down a little. I haven’t published at anywhere near like the same pace, though I am plodding onward. Only seven stories so far this month: one every second day.
One thing I did was to complete a story that had been requested by a reader who liked some of my work. For possible publication in an upcoming story, it worked out a little longer than the five thousand word maximum (and so I’ll likely have to cut and polish a fair bit).
I got this done in two days of enjoyable writing. A little erotic teaser, full of thrilling and illegal activities, many of them with no clothes on.
So far I’ve had a very productive year. Maybe not a lot of income but I’ve found a couple of hundred followers, I’ve now got more time to build relationships with other writers and I am thoroughly enjoying my time here.
Molly
