Staying on Medium, Publishing Less

time to focus

Ariadne on Naxos: exactly how I feel. (photo: Ariadne Ross)

I’ve been wrestling with Medium since I joined three weeks ago. Is it yet another social media time-sink, verging on a black hole? A great place to hone my writing skills? A source of thought-provoking, inspiring, fun, or downright irritating reads?A place to meet simpatico people? A distraction from completing my long-form fiction draft, i.e. my book? A veiled pseudo-pyramid scheme run by a narcissist?

It seems it’s a little bit of all these, likely much more. It’s the distraction aspect that has weighed heaviest the past week, though. I’ve spent hours on Medium — mostly well spent hours — hours which I could have, probably should have, devoted to finishing my manuscript and getting it out to my beta readers (self-imposed New Year’s Day deadline missed). I need to really focus on my manuscript, and that’s what I’m going to do.

Medium itself made the decision a bit easier: I am ineligible for the Partner Program because I live in a country which is not on the eligible list. (Also I’ve done the big no-no of writing about Medium on Medium. I should stop this, which means of course I’ll do it even more.)

I will keep writing here — less — what I do write I will try to ensure is high quality. I will keep reading and interacting here, but set myself a virtual (or better, an actual) timer to keep me out of the social media abyss.

I’m pleased to be here, Medium. We’ll just be seeing a little less of each other.