The First Medium Story I Ever Published Went Viral
And once I figured out what the hell was even going on, I learned a lot from the experience.
When I first found my way to this site in December of 2019, I can’t say I expected a lot or saw myself spending that much time here. I’d heard of Medium before, and I was thrilled to see they’d introduced a partner program since I’d last been on the site. I also saw it was possible to make decent money here, as opposed to just pennies, but that really wasn’t something I saw happening to me.
It also wasn’t something I wanted to count on. I’d been a full-time writer for well over a decade at that point, but my bread and butter was in web content, copywriting, ghostwriting, and the like — writing things to order for other people. I’d also just unexpectedly lost my biggest client, so I needed money — like the type of money you could actually live on — and fast.
I really didn’t think royalties from a blogging site were going to cut it, but I figured I could give writing here a try anyway while I continued to pitch to new clients. I’d been wanting to get back to writing for myself again in my spare time, anyway, and Medium sounded like a perfect fit. And if I managed to make some extra pizza money here and there, as well, then great.
So, right before Christmas Eve, I decided to bang something out.
I’d spent most of December scouring the internet for new copywriting clients and successfully proving to them that I was worth hiring. So, by the time the holidays got here, I felt a lot better about my money situation and like I could justify checking this place out in a little more detail.
At the time, I was also in the process of getting myself back in shape after years of sedentary living and reckless flirting with a developing alcohol problem. So, one Sunday afternoon, I decided to throw something together about the lessons I’d learned from that experience so far. I edited it the next day, hit “publish”, and forgot all about it almost immediately. This is it, in case you’re curious:
