My most recent Medium articles

After three weeks of hearing nothing from the publication to which I had submitted these two articles, today, during my lunch break, I bailed and withdrew the submissions. I have since published them myself.

Vacationing in the Era of the Rona

It's OK to Stand Your Ground

I will keep writing, as well as trying to connect with publications within Medium that are a bit more prompt about getting back to authors who have submitted articles. 
 

Still writing for Medium

I am still writing for Medium, but I have tried a new tactic to see if I can get my name in front of more people's eyes.

Within Medium, there are different publications that accept submissions from writers. If you want, you can submit directly to Medium.com, but there are so many articles submitted there, it will be challenging for your work to gain traction if you haven't already got an established audience of followers. More paid members reading your article translates into more money being paid to you at the end of the month.

The publications within Medium are geared toward stories of a given type. There are publications that accept submissions about relationships, career, tech, writing, and a lengthy list of other categories. If your story fits into one of these niches, then it will be worth your while to attempt to submit it to the requisite publication. The good news: more eyes that are interested in your topic will see your story if it gets published there. The other news: the editors of said publication have to review your work first, and that can take time.

So, I have three articles sitting and waiting for editors to review them. Hence, I have no links to recent articles, even though I have been writing steadily.

Cross your fingers that my articles will make their way into their respective publications soon. I am impatient and I want to see what happens to my stats when an article is in a publication.

I'm all set to carpe freakin' diem.

Woot, woot!

I am officially a paid author! 😀 I'll try not to spend it all in one place, lol.

Next up: curation on Medium. That's when Medium sends your article's link out to others, vastly increasing the number of visitors to the article. That's when an author will REALLY say, "Woot, woot!"

Singing the praises of distraction-free writing

I have a few devices that are basically portable word processors. I LOVE them. Love. They really help my just sit down and write, sans any kind of distraction.

So for my latest Medium article, I thought I would spend a little time singing their praises.

I actually started this article about 16 days ago, but that's right about when my laptop started to flake out. I spent so much time trying to straighten out all the laptop issues, and then working on migrating my files to the new machine, that I had no time or energy left to finish the article. Finally, this afternoon, as soon as I logged out from work for the day, I decided that the article was getting completed TO-DAY, period. It was actually pretty close to being done, but even then it took me three and a half hours to put the finishing touches on it (because perfectionist).

Anyway, I love me some gadgets.

Enjoy!

Distraction-Free Writing is the Way to Go

Medium Post

It dawns on me that I have got a Medium post sitting waiting to be completed and edited. Fortunately, it does not have time-sensitive content, but it has been sitting for a couple of weeks as I have grappled with computer gremlins.

Well, now that I have the new computer, I am not dealing with random freezes and crashes while I am trying to work, so IMO it behooves me to get this document edited.

I can get to work on that after work.

Also, there is now a Wildwood Tram Car app. Now we can pay fares with cashless transactions, the better to protect everyone from COVID this summer.  Needless to say, I downloaded it as soon as I found out it was available.

To Do List

I have been building up to starting to write on Medium for a while now. I would say it's been two or three months since I made the decision to start submitting articles. But first, I prepared by creating a list of topics to write about.

It amuses me that the article I submitted last night actually started out as one topic, but quickly morphed into expounding on a different topic. Here I was, thinking that I was going to cover one particular situation, and then my brain said  NOPE and veered off in a different direction. I just went with the flow, edited accordingly, and hit Publish.

In retrospect, maybe I need to go through that topic list and make sure that there aren't redundant entries on there. Perhaps a few of the items on the list are a little TOO closely related to one another, and they can be categorized as a single topic.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing.  I just heard Todd Rundgren's "Bang on the Drum All Day", and it reminded me of how enthused I am to sit at a keyboard and just create.

Fortunately, the past few workdays have been offering me ample opportunity to deploy my brainpower, which means that I am already in high gear when I log off at the end of the day. I have started handling electronic medical records requests, and it has been a bit of a travail trying to send faxes via email. Once I got it working on my end, the Gremlins started acting up on the receiving end. I got an email yesterday afternoon, saying that we are now to email the requests to a new address set up for this purpose, rather than using Outlook to send the faxes.

It's all good. I started sending the medical record requests the new way as of today, and it works. Take that, Gremlins!

Verbal Abuse is Still Abuse

The latest Medium article:

The Relationship Red Flag That Hides In Plain Sight

I Never Had to Find Myself

My latest Medium.com post:


I Never Had to Find Myself

Folks who know me offline have heard me opine on this topic, and how early I think the seeds are planted for midlife crisis, multiple times. I thought it would be a good idea to write it out.

I am now officially a writer at Medium.com

I have been a paid member of Medium.com for a few years now. I finally reached the point where the Urge To Write grew too strong to resist, so I started working on articles.

Here's my profile, which I just realized I need to add to my sidebar on here:


Donna's Medium Page

So stop on by and see what's happening! I published my first article over there yesterday. As it happens, I also posted a version of the same article here, but there are going to be times when I post content that is unique to either this blog or Medium, rather than being duplicated.

Here's the article link that allows both free and paid members to read the content:

I Enjoy My Lockdown Work Situation

Enjoy!

And then the world turned upside-down

Well, it has been a couple years since I have made any major updates. Merlin and Pyewacket are two years old now. Baxter will turn 13 in September. Mark is retired as of a couple years ago, because his employer moved his entire department from PA to FL and cut all the PA jobs. To get the severance package, the PA folks had to train their FL replacements to do their job. He passed his 40-year work anniversary at that company a few weeks prior to the job being cut.

I am still working for the medical system, a job which I started in late 2015 as a temp, and then converted to working full-time with Real Live Benefits nine months later.


In mid-March, the plague known as COVID-19 swept over the US significantly enough that PA started issuing stay-at-home orders. As medical system employees, we were classed as essential, so we could continue working. However, we all converted to a schedule that had us working part of the week in the office and part from home. This would allow for a skeleton crew in the clinic, but keep as few people as possible on the premises to reduce the risk of the staff being exposed to coronavirus.

Two weeks later, though, our schedules were revamped again. We were told that we had two days to retrieve all our personal effects from the clinic, as the entire floor of the building where we work was going to be converted to surge beds. The idea was that if the hospital across the street was overloaded with COVID patients, the non-COVID patients would be set up on our floor, so that the coronavirus patients could take up more hospital rooms. This meant that we were all going to be working full-time from home. And so that is where we stand now. We will be working from home for at least the next two weeks, as we are working on converting all appointments through the middle of May to telemedicine if possible. Folks who absolutely must be treated in person are being directed to other health system locations where the clinic is open.

We all miss socializing on weekends. The Misfit Toys have a weekly Zoom call at 5:30 PM. JFM, KR, Mark, DH, and I have been regulars. BAS and ES have joined in when they could, but BA has had work meetings that have kept her from coming in for the past couple weeks. I actually subscribed to Zoom to make sure that we wouldn't get cut off after 40 minutes on the conference call. I can have up to 100:participants now. I think I will not be running afoul of that limit any time soon, lol.

So, that's all the news that's fit to print.

Except this: I have a new project. I want to start writing for Medium.com. I think I am going to have to create my posts elsewhere and import them, though, because the freaking editor page looks utterly blank. I even double-checked to make sure I was using a compatible web browser, and I am. Therefore, Step One is going to be to find a tutorial or three that explains how to create a post on their FREAKING BLANK PAGE screen. I am used to Blogger where the fields are clearly marked so you know what you're writing, and where you're supposed to write it.

When I publish a new post on there, I will link it here.