I Never Asked to be a Better Writer

Why does Medium keep trying to make me one?

I came to this platform to read and write.

Does the prospect of making money while doing it sound nice? Of course, but that’s not what initially drew me to Medium. My friends suggested it to me since I wanted to get back into blogging. The last time I put effort into blogging, it was just ripping pieces straight from my journal onto a Ruby on Rails tutorial blog I built in a day.

I didn’t do it for the clout. I did it because it was fun and felt good to write.

Thus far, writing on Medium has scratched that itch and more. I’m a fan of how simple everything is. Not long ago I built a WordPress blog for a friend, and I made a duplicate to test out the blogging capabilities. WordPress is a flexible platform, so it came as no surprise that there were endless themes, customization, and plugins available to “enhance” the blogging experience. That was cool, but what I found is that it was overkill. It ended up just being a distraction for what I wanted to do: write. I’m still new here, but I haven’t had the same experience with Medium. The editor is straightforward, clean, and intuitive. Publishing posts and tracking your stats is easy, and it doesn’t feel like plugins or advanced features are pushed down your throat, nor needed.

It’s as accessible (or damn near close to) as sitting down in your office, picking up a pencil, and scribbling in your journal. Except it’s a journal that other people look at. And I’m…