Toni Koraza’s approach to responding thoughtfully and creatively to Medium.com articles, as he describes in “The Most Overlooked Marketing Tool on Medium” came at the right time to me. I’d just looked up my stats and saw that one of my most recent stories received four seconds of reading time by internal Medium readers.
Member reading timeLIFETIME MEMBER READING TIME4 sec
Preparing creative work In case you might possibly but not probably die
OK — my story was about reflecting on possible though not probable death due to COVID, and preventing the demise of my creative work, just in case. I guess that’s a story most would like to avoid… ( “What If” Thoughts During COVID Lead to “What Matters?”) I thought people, especially writers, would appreciate that I was unearthing denial. I had to pull that story out of me like a clown pulling colorful scarves out of his or her painted mouth.
I had been so excited that the story had been recently published by an ethical, innovative publication to which I’d just been accepted. In a response, I compared their publication’s array of stories to a peacock fanning his intriguing train, and included a link to the video “Peacocks’ mating dance…” I worked on that comment for about an hour (groan) excited that the publication linked my death article to their exciting and extensive collection. I felt like I had arrived in a supportive writing community where I belonged.
“Hitting bottom”
Seeing the stats for the “What If” story this afternoon, I’m embarrassed to say (but that rarely stops me) led me to a good, long-needed cry over my lap-top. Our pit-bull/German shepherd mix came over to the big-wooden table and licked me profusely and continually, and my young adult daughter, on her trip to the kitchen, noticing me crying, reminded me that she’d bought me.a Filipino mango — my favorite.
Thank God, my high school journalism teacher Jeri Amblad, at that juncture, commented on my “New Author Bio” “Still a great writer!!”
Differentiating between responses and stories
Since Toni Koraza mentioned it, and though I like the forward-thinking concept behind responses being articles - exchanges of creativity, I’m wondering how Medium readers looking through stories might more easily find the published articles that we labor over more (that’s an understatement) midst the often shorter responses. [I’ve relaxed more while writing this response/story — which is probably a better idea than laboring! One of my heroes, the author SARK, often writes while lying down in her bed in her pajamas].
Take-aways from falling and rising
For the first time, due to Toni Koraza’s inspiration and suggestion, I’m making this response into a story. Without realizing it, I’ve picked myself up from “the bottom” through the creativity of writing an article — albeit not a soul-searching, look at death over your shoulder article. Toni’s advice guides me to step onto the path of responding more thoughtfully to articles and to exploring and experimenting on this marketing terrain.
Caring gestures of Scooby’s compassionate tongue, my daughter’s mango gift, and the treasure — the affirmation from my high school journalism teacher fifty years since graduation, also soothed my heart after my let-down. A side bonus was that crying, and nudging out a second, shorter wave of crying with a little pity party was a great release for the stresses from the past four months.
I realize, finally, that seeing stats of four seconds of internal reading of my “What If…” article, while a temporary shock and disappointment, gave me three hundred seconds (at least) worth of reflection on ways I can shorten, focus, and lighten it up, if I choose to, and apply this learning to my writing of future articles. For you reading this now, I hope my story of “hitting bottom” and getting up armed with new resources will remind you to keep on keeping on if you are discouraged by four seconds in the lifetime of your writing career.
“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” Paola Coelho
