How Often Should I Post?

Photo by Mikael Blomkvist on Pexels

I know that there is some marketing guru out there ready to tell me the optimum number of Medium posts I should be doing per week. However, this post is not going to tell you what the optimum number is. No, this post is going to be about what the optimum number of posts is—for me.

Now that I’m back from vacation, I am gearing up to get back into my Medium-posting routine. Generally, vacations recharge me and rev me up for a renewed writing frenzy. And this past vacation, which I’ll write about in subsequent posts, has done that…just not for my Medium posting.

When I first joined Medium, I had just been laid off. I had so much time on my hands, as well as a bucket-load of guilt. It was just the right combination to propel me to write blog posts almost every single day. However, that posting frequency was far too much for me, especially as I began to build out my editing freelance business. I was particularly burned out after working, writing posts, and completing a month of Inktober drawings last year.

As I got used to the spiky freelancing rhythms, to save my sanity, I pulled back to posting just three times a week. Everything I’ve read says that you need to post frequently to build up your community, but, to be honest, as I get older, I just don’t have the energy that I used to. And what extra energy I do have, I want to reserve for working on my novel in progress and my short stories (and my art). 

So, I’ve made the decision to pare back to writing just two Medium blog posts per week. I had toyed with the idea of doing just one per week, but I do like the writing lessons that I learn as I practice this short form writing format. Writing regularly and coming up with multiple themes each week has allowed me to sharpen my writing craft in general. 

But, again, I want to strike the right balance. As I was revising a short story during my vacation, I really spent time reading and reviewing my words. I didn’t want to just spew out text just to get words down on the page. I wanted to feel the rhythms, the choreography of my words, of my sentences, of my metaphors, and of my themes all stepping around each other to form this beautiful story dance. And that takes time. 

It’s something I’d like to reserve more of my time for. If I’m spending three hours a week writing short blog posts, those are three hours that I’m not spending on my “real” writing. 

So, I will now be writing just two posts per week (that is when I’m not on vacation). I will see how this new rhythm feels to me. If it doesn’t work out, I may even go down to writing one post per week. 

I already feel the writing load for my week feeling a little bit lighter, and I now get to polish this post off so that I can go back to outlining my second novel in progress.