Medium 100 Stories Deep
The epic moment of epic moments has arrived, ladies and gentlemen. No need for a red carpet or photos, some claps are enough.
Today I want to sum up my experience on here.
Firstly, the cold hard facts.
First story published 24 May 2021 that is 535 days of writing till today, 10 November 2022.
535/100 = One story every 5.35 days. No way such consistency would have been possible while still indulging alcohol.
Before I started to write on Medium, I was consuming a lot of written stories myself. They were mainly stories about alcohol and sobriety, that’s what was interesting to me at that time. But I also enjoyed self-development, finance and all sort of other topics.
Two months after I had an incident where I fell on my head and quit alcohol, I decided to try this writing thing and published this story.
After overthinking whether to try it out or not for some days, and thinking thoughts like.
“What if everybody would point fingers at me and shout. Look at this victim, he has a drinking problem.”
“What if my future employee would see these stories and judge me negatively?”
“ What if my still drinking friends would read this, and I would look weak and addicted to them?”
All that was going on in my head before I finally hit publish. And that was my first big learning.
Learning number 1
Nobody cares like you think they care.
Feel free to try out all you want on every platform you want. All my worries were just anxious fantasies, nothing more and nothing less. People usually don’t worry about your problems, they worry about themselves exactly the way I did.
Learning number 2
Getting help
Opening up about your problems and getting help or helping others is extremely beneficial. I used to think it might be weak to do so, but now I think the contrary. Getting help and open up is an act of courage that can help you and others.
There are people waiting to help you because they enjoy helping. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity, even if your problem seems small at the moment. Why not give it a try? If I had understood this earlier, I wouldn’t have hesitated for so long trying to get done everything on my own.
There is no hero award for that, you are just delaying possible great results.
Learning number 3
Putting thoughts on paper.
It is an interesting process to put your thoughts on a page and edit them. That showed me that I am wrong with my thoughts a lot of the time, and that I can take and edit them to my advantage.
Learning number 4
What is a good story?
The reading stats showed that what I perceived to be a good or bad story was false very often. There is no point to be too judgy about your own writing. Still I am judging my writing a lot before publishing, it just got easier to hit that publish button.
Learning number 5
Forcing creativity
Forcing myself to sit down and start writing produced better results than I imagined. Before that, I thought writing is a solely creative process, where you get your epiphanies and the fingers start flying on the keyboard. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It is possible to improve the writing or your creative output with sheer work ethic.
How much did I earn?
I would have earned more working at McDonald’s for one day. I guess you get out what you put in. All the online marketing and money making is still a mystery to me. Maybe I will come with a super product next year, but it is also very possible that I won’t.
Will I continue to write?
Yes, I will try and publish once a week, consistently. Even though I am a bit bored with the alcohol topic. The stats show all you guys are interested in from me is alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. I am writing for you readers, and there will be alcohol and addiction experiences. I think I will write loosely about different topics like self-development, positive psychology, interactions with humans too.
All in all, it is a very interesting experience for me. Not always pleasurable, I have to admit. I was on the edge of putting this project down several times. I am carrying some stories in my head around for days, that can be burdensome and mess with my concentration for other endeavors.
But for you guys, I carry that burden around trying to get broader shoulders. Then I am thrown back and forth whether to sit down and write or not. Does all that thinking without publishing bring any value at all? Is a thought that comes to light in such moments.
Still, I am addicted to this process and the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
This story got a bit long, but I had to let this out. Now you have to live with that.
Seriously, I want to thank everybody who took some time to read one of my stories and engaged in the comments. Thanks to creators on Medium, I am sober, which is a very great thing in itself. I learned a lot from you guys and keep on writing, you never know who you might help.
More of my stories:
