A Month of Pendrop Silence

Photo by Sound On from Pexels

I’ve been writing my entire life in some capacity or another, but it was only earlier this year I decided to write on Medium. I noticed an unfortunate trend in my writing: it was getting sloppy. And boring. And overedited. Half the time I finished an article I felt nauseated by my work. Why? In the past writing has always been a source of catharsis for me, a precious release from the disorganized voice in my head. It was a place for breakthroughs and self-therapy. Sure, it was uncomfortable at times, but never like this.

So, I decided to take a break. Decided is a strong word. It was more like I crash-landed into a break. Life hit me hard and demanded time away from writing. Between that and a lack of fulfillment from my drafts, I set the pen down. The only writing I did for the past 30 days was for my work, which consisted of code and increasingly poetic emails. I regrettably checked my stats periodically, and I kept in touch with some writer friends in Facebook groups. Other than that, I tried to focus on some overdue important items in my life. Over the course of the month, I discovered what was leaving a sour taste in my pen-mouth. Here’s the diagnosis.

Like in sex, if I have to force it, it’s not going to be good for anyone

In retrospect, this should have been obvious. The stories that I love writing have all written themselves. They’re stories that I’m excited to write. It’s not that they don’t require work, refinement, research, and all of the sugar that goes into a polished piece. Rather, I don’t feel stretched to put words to paper for — let’s be honest — a few dollars and a half-assed takeaway.

That’s right. The stories that I feel like are good are the ones where I learn something by the time I hit publish. That’s a tough thing to accomplish when you’re forcing yourself to write something that just isn’t sticking. 

So many writers on this platform encourage us to “just write”. Sure, that’s good advice for getting started. Sometimes we need to shut up and write, and the rest takes care of itself. But plenty of times that doesn’t happen. It’s at this point that I had to start asking: what am I getting from this? If the answer to that question is nothing, then it’s probably also nothing for my readers. 

Writing to make a quick buck? More like writing to suck

I have a list of “great” story ideas that have gone nowhere. Most of them have thrilling introductions and then fall flat. I mean, look at this uninspiring pile of draft trash.

Source: My sad brain. The World of Warcraft one is low-key gold, though — promise.

Why did these all end up in the bin?

Because all of them were written with the intent of getting views. They’re literally written in my notebook under “Ideas for Coin” (I was watching the Witcher when I wrote it, okay). Miraculously, none of them were ever finished. This is only about a quarter of the full list, but I’ll spare you that pain. 

The reason they were never finished goes back to the point above: they don’t provide any value. They exist solely to generate view value and thus will be a chore to write. Perhaps some of you can write great stories as a chore, but that is not me. 

My stats took a dive… and then stopped?

My biggest fear when I stopped writing was that all of a sudden all of my views would dip and the work I’d put in would somehow cease to be relevant. I’d only generated a few thousand views in my time on Medium, so it’s not like I’m a hotshot over here. Still, it weighed on my mind. These were my stats at the end of the month I was still writing.

Source: Me(dium)

Nothing crazy, right? Notice early in the month when it was spiking. That’s when I was publishing pieces I still enjoyed writing. Around then I was looking at just over 2,400 views (30 days). 

Once I stopped writing, it started to plummet. To my horror, I checked my stats more frequently than I had before, biting my nails as they went from over 2k to 1.9k to 1.7k to 1.5k. Finally, the bleeding stopped for a moment at 1,300. That’s when something unexpected happened: they stopped going down entirely. My daily views hovered at about 50–60, spiking as high as 100 one day. This means, despite my lack of new articles, people were continuing to read my content. I know what you’re thinking: isn’t that the whole point?

Well, yes. It’s just a relief to know that it actually happens. Here are my views for the past 30 days. 

Note that I had a story publish late, spiking my views

Would they continue to drop over time? Perhaps, but for now, it appears as though they will reign steady in their ~50 views a day. This fact alone gives me a lot more confidence than the vague sense of success I felt from watching my views spike up and down from cramming article after article to my readers.

I realized I was caring far too much about the little things

Stats. Medium Partner Program. Curation. Curation jail? Curation percent. Reach. Words per minute. Views per word. Publications. Read time per publication. Publication jail? 

What do all of these have in common?

They all make me want to vomit. They’re all things that are secondary to the writing. Say it with me. They’re distractions. 

In my 30 days of writing quarantine I stalked through the writing groups I’m a part of and noticed that the vast majority of posts are people worrying about these things, most notably curation. 

News flash: all of these side dishes that measure “success” are throwing stress onto the plates of writers who might otherwise be, well, enjoying writing. I mean for Christ’s sake, people are out here panicking because a UI update changed the curation text in stats. 

Of course, I’m not saying they’re inherently bad. It’s wonderful to celebrate a story being curated, hitting a follower goal, or getting accepted into that publication you’ve been submitting to all year. Curation as a tool to bring forth top tier stories is perfectly okay, as are rigorous publications. However, the culture of whining about curation (a gold star that doesn’t necessarily indicate an article will do well), publication submission wait times (editors are people and there’s nothing you can do to change that), and so on is suffocating. Even as only an observer over the last 30 days, I felt the residual grasp of these worries. 

Curation jail, a supposed blacklist where Medium will not curate a writer’s work, is perhaps the epitome of this. Whether or not such a thing exists is beyond me. I’m inclined to say it does not, at least not in this grudge-type ban list people describe it as. However, worrying about whether such a thing does exist is a great way to block oneself from actually producing anything meaningful. 

I needed to take a step back from all of this fluff and rekindle my love for writing as the means and the end. 

I remembered why I like to write

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this because I feel like the horse is already dead and rotting. However, it turns out that exploring what I want to do instead of forcing myself to write what I think I should be writing, gave me way more to talk about. 

There are countless experienced writers on Medium who will tell you that the best writing comes from living. In other words, content doesn’t come from thin air. It’s easy to read that and think “yeah, of course, but I already have plenty to write about from my life.” 

What I realized, though, is that it’s not about a lack of content, but a lack of perspective. As with so many facets of life, sometimes you need a break, a chance to reset. I certainly did, and taking the time to reset let me adjust my focus and remember why I was writing long before I was on Medium. If you feel like how I felt above, it might be worth your time to give it a try, too. 

Photo by Persnickety Prints on Unsplash