4 Reasons Why I Don’t Write on Medium

Finding the words isn’t the problem

Christian Wardlaw
3 min readSep 14, 2021
Medium.com home page shown on a laptop computer, inviting people to publish, grow, and earn, all in one place.
Photo copyright Christian Wardlaw.

In the spring of 2015, I discovered Medium, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Few days since have passed without a session on the site or the app, and I became a paying member the moment I could, eager to support the people who educate and entertain me daily.

At first, I was excited about the possibilities for building my own publication and audience. Given my lack of free time, Medium’s clean, minimalist look, user-friendly editor, and secure, effortless back-end technology absolutely beat the alternatives. Even today, I dream of leveraging Medium’s simplicity and domain authority to supercharge the launch of my own little corner of the internet, something to sustain me creatively (and perhaps financially) in the future.

And yet, I’ve published just 20 stories here, most recently over two years ago when an editor rejected something and I recycled it on Medium. I’ve never submitted a piece to a publication, and the handful of pubs I’ve created have immediately withered like the untended gardens they were. I think I’ve made a total of 25 cents from my work.

So, why don’t I write on Medium? As it turns out, there are four primary reasons, and an inability to find the words isn’t one of them.

1. Exhaustion

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Christian Wardlaw

Father. Husband. Driver. Traveler. Writer. Editor. Photographer. Video Host. Survivor.