Sunday Confessions: It's Been Awhile, Dear Blog. Why I Have Shifted to Medium

I confess: Hello! Long time no blog. Over a year. Yowza. What can I say other than Pandemic times be crazy/my blogging mojo disappeared (maybe forever? Idk...).

If anyone follows me on Twitter or Insta you might know I have been writing, mostly on Medium recently. I joined at the end of July 2021 after feeling really uninspired to write for a long time. I don't know what came over me - they were having a cash money writing contest (spoiler I didn't win) so I am sure that was part of it. 

But it has a pretty decent and interactive writing community, which has really motivated me, along with the small goal I set myself to earn back the $5 membership fee every month. Medium is ad-free and pays members according to reads. This has its pluses and minuses. 

People with a big readership do great and are admittedly in the minority. Small fish like me try to scramble for a viral hit (erm except I basically just write what I want). But I would declare it a success in that every month I have earned back my membership fee plus a little extra (excluding the first month when I was only there for a week). AND I am writing again - so there is that. 

I don't know how to be a success at Medium any better than I did at blogging, but I feel a bit freer there to just write what I want, and hopefully elevate my writing to a less blogger-ish style where necessary, without killing "my voice" too much. The big thing there is to produce as much as possible - but I am hesitant to churn quantity over quality. 

You can also import old blog posts there if you wish as long as you state that you have published it elsewhere. I have personally only done this once so far. I guess once I have written something it's in the past in my mindset, I don't know why and it's possibly to my detriment. I do feel like five (six?) years of blogging have whipped me into better shape as a writer though.

I hope it doesn't come across as snobby to say that Medium is inspiring me to try to elevate my writing. I don't know if I will ever be a professional/paid writer, that ship may have sailed, but I enjoy writing the essay-ish type stuff there, it makes me feel like my English degree hasn't gone completely to waste lol.

There are some drawbacks, the site pays almost diddly squat for outside reads/views, so even though I wrote an album/band article about Toad the Wet Sprocket that received almost 3k views this week I have earned almost nothing from it as they were 98% external hits. Which is some bullshit if you ask me! 

Apparently, the site Vocal Media pays better for external reads than Medium, but it has its own fees and is less interactive community-wise than Medium as there are no comments on the articles. 

I am definitely trying to maximize any earning potential I can from my writing. I figure if I spend a lot of time writing something and blogging won't pay me or reward me in other ways (Blogging just became really dead for non-influencer blogs in my opinion, and while I appreciate the friendships and loyal readers I have, it's weird to feel like you are largely in an echo chamber after awhile).

Anyway so that's the tea on that. Please come say hi if you are already on Medium! I am here.

Also if you decide to become a member please use my affiliate membership link, I will earn a portion of your membership fee every month (this is a new way for content creators to make money on Medium, although real talk I have zero sign ups so far lol). My membership join link is https://steffanyritchie.medium.com/membership 

Even non-writers can join Medium to have unlimited access to reading as many articles as they want, whereas free members get three a month I think. Oh I just remembered I did join as a free member to start with, you can also write without being a paid member (but you won't earn/be a part of the partnership program). 

They did put some new rules in place even since I joined where you have to have 100 followers to be approved (they are very obviously trying to get a more social media type vibe here but also it's dumb in my opinion as followers on Medium are cheap). Half of them are bots or don't read, so add no value to the site. On the plus side it should be easy for most people to get followers, I am at over 400 and I don't really follow anyone unless I like their writing.

Anyway seriously I will shut up about that now.

I confess: I don't know what else I have to report. Like Covid life be crazy in the UK. We are getting more restrictions again because of Omicron and honestly, I am just really beyond fed up of it now. 

It is making my Mom's planned Christmas visit a nightmare logistically for her to have to book nine million Covid tests and isolate in my small apartment is a joke. Like, I could go to a nightclub tonight, get wasted, swap spit with 20 unvaccinated people (Obvi I am an old married lady I am JUST SAYING), without any tracing or tracking or testing. But my masked, triple vaxxed Mom is treated like Hannibal Lechter just because she is flying in. 

I did manage to visit her in Florida in June and honestly, I almost forgot about Covid for a few moments when I was over there. It was freaking bliss.

So yeah, right now I am a stress ball hoping her trip goes to plan, please send any good vibes her/my way if you can for her journey this Wednesday.

In typical me form I have planned a million pre-Christmas run-up things and executed almost none of them. I decided I wanted to make Stollen (it's like a German Christmas fruity sweet bread) this year because it is so expensive and we always buy stollen bites and then they are gone and we are sad. Of course it is not a simple thing to make, I don't own a stand mixer so I am now realizing I am in way over my head after I have bought all of the not cheap ingredients. Any tips appreciated for hand mixing bread lol. Ugh.

Anyway, I am just going to go ahead and push publish. I know it's only Saturday but there is no way I will remember to do this tomorrow the way things are going. Hope everyone is doing ok and has a nice holiday season despite the slight shitshow many of us are still living in (Merry Christmas lol).