Thanks Lloyd Christmas
So You’re Saying There’s a (Second) Chance
Always another opportunity to confirm a bad first impression
Okay, don’t panic. Just because my first story made all the splash of a fart in a jacuzzi doesn’t mean it’s all downhill from here. I’m sure the fine people of MuddyUm will accept this second article with open arms, unlike the fart in the aforementioned jacuzzi. Fun fact — they did not.
That’s exactly what you want to see for your first publication — a 5% read rate among 19 people. Which sounds way more impressive than 1 reader. And I’m pretty sure that reader was my wife. Also, is it just me, or is the view trend count chart flipping me off?
I suppose it could be worse. The number of views could have been in the single digits, or possibly negative integer territory. That could be a new Medium feedback mechanism — the anti-clap. For when you dislike an article so much you want to assess a penalty to the author.
Yes, loyal reader, I hear you and you may have a point. I should be a better writer. I could have also advertised the story’s existence, like, at all. Maybe joined a social media network and turned on the “please approve” light. Sorry, blame it on me. I suppose I was hoping against all odds that people would stumble across the article and tell everyone they had ever met how good it was. It could happen. Someday.
If I were starting over, maybe I could appeal on bended knee to the masses and ask them to just give me a reason to write another article. I mean, what would I do instead? Revive my blog? Pay Wordpress & Bluehost more than what a roundtrip JetBlue flight costs? Heck no. Thinking back to December when I joined Medium — the answers are the same as they were then. The benefits and terrors of publicly displaying my writing outweigh the cost of hosting a blog no one read. Every road leads back to you, Medium.
I originally chose to write for Medium because that is the amount of effort I aim to put in and the level of success I aim to achieve. If you leave me now I’ll never know if investing slightly more ass than half assed would have made the difference. All I’m asking the internet to do is take a chance on me. I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get my literally ones of readers to give me a second chance.
So here goes. A very meta article about itself and how it came to be. Another shot at writing something worth reading. If only I had more energy to add content too.
Until next time. Assuming there will be a next time of course.
-Philip
P.S. — This article contains a baker’s dozen of song titles about second chances. Let’s get that average reading time up by going back and highlighting as many as you can find. The first one to finish gets the joy of ruining the game for everyone else. Which is even better than a cash prize when you think about it.
