Regrets After One Year In The Medium Partner Program And 18 Years Of Blogging…
I learnt a lot, and most of it wasn’t about writing…
As I’m about to wrap up my first year in the Medium Partner Program, looking back at these last twelve months, but also eighteen years of blogging, I feel there are things to be said that I haven’t really admitted to myself ever before. I rarely have moments of regret. Having lived a pretty responsible life for 36 years, there is inevitably not much to regret, but when it comes to writing, blogging, expressing myself, I think I have made more mistakes than I feel comfortable with. Let this serve both as cautionary tale and inspiration for anyone who reads this and for me, going forward.
Self dismissal
In the grand scheme of things, I know I’m young, and I feel even younger, but the shortness of life is weighing increasingly acutely on me. Having spent eighteen years with an untapped talent makes me realise how granted we take our time on Earth for. In hindsight, I find it disturbing how for fourteen of those eighteen years, I did nothing more with my latent writing skills but be a music critic for three years and move my stories behind the Medium paywall for one. Sure, I spent nine months writing a novel that I’m scared shitless to publish, but that’s really it. I have spent fourteen years writing, but not caring or nurturing the talent I was exhibiting through my articles and blogs.
I self sabotaged a career opportunity by dismissing a skill I had, considering it infinitely more universal than it really was.
The misconception that everyone can write, that my articles were just my verbal diarrhoea where the only difference was that I chose to publish them, was a grave mistake. I shrugged off every compliment both from friends and professionals as irrelevant nonsense since I didn’t feel like I put effort into writing, and therefore it cannot possibly be of real value to anyone but myself, and everyone who is too cheap to pay for content on the internet.
Misguided ego
Over my eighteen years of online writing, I spent only eight on Medium. In fairness, I couldn’t have spent much more than that, as Medium itself is just around ten years old. However, I should have known better given the fact that three years I spent on a one million visitor platform where I was editor, writer, and music critic. I should have known the power of a platform with a builtin audience. What did I do instead? I built my own blogs. 🤦♂️
If you want an almost guaranteed failure as a writer, go, build your own blog. Your recurring visitors will be tumbleweed and crickets.
In the space of a decade, I think I had about four or five different blogs. I spent more time building and maintaining those blogs than writing articles and getting readers. An utter waste of time when I could have used my skills and talent to write where the readers were. Bitch as much as you like about Medium, but to date, it is perhaps the best platform out there with a builtin audience that actually reads.
The point should have never been to have my own blog, but to have my voice heard.
Swimming against the tide
For seven years of my Medium presence, I refused to make a single cent from my articles. Sure, I loved writing, I still do, and if that’s not obvious, I don’t fucking know what is, but my misguided anti-establishment approach to writing and remuneration was an incredibly naive mistake. There is a difference between writing for money and accepting money for writing, and it took me a while to understand that.
The former has indeed the potential to ruin you as a writer, though, it doesn’t have to. The latter, however, is a lot less of a slippery slope. What I realised going behind the paywall was that I wasn’t giving up any of my integrity as a writer. I kept writing about the things I care about, the things I have enough understanding to be talking about, and everything from topic, to length, to tone and message was entirely up to me. The only difference was that behind the paywall I now declared that my thoughts had value, and put that value in my reader’s hands.
There is nothing wrong with accepting a reward for a job well done.
Beyond regrets…
I would like to end on a more upbeat note, because while to some extent I have no choice but to accept that I have squandered fourteen years of writing and whatever that could have led to, I am blessed enough to be in a position to change that going forward.
True to my 6-month review of the Medium Partner Program, I will stay behind the paywall for another two years, and I am going to make those two years matter more than the fourteen, I didn’t do enough with. While of course my primary career is still software engineering, writing is now officially my secondary, heck, parallel career. I intend to make the absolute most of it. I will publish my novel, and I will also write that book on accessibility that I keep wanting to write.
In terms of Medium presence, I am going to stay very active and just as pragmatic, inspirational and funny as I’ve been, or maybe even more. I will continue to build my brand, and also my two publications Bricks n’ Brackets and Off Message. Above all, I’ll keep writing only about the things I care about and enjoy. I haven’t the time to waste on anything else.
So, any regrets in your writing journey and if so, how are you planning to rectify them going forward?
Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, LEGO fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer! Read my Hello story here! Subscribe and/or become a member for more stories about LEGO, tech, coding and accessibility!
