Stop Chasing Quantity and Start Creating Quality

This Week In Writing, we discuss Medium’s new Boost program and why the vast majority of submissions lately have been atrocious

“toy rocket” by Justin Cox and Midjourney

“Do you lean into quantity or quality?” It’s a never-ending debate across any community of writers. I’ve always answered the question by saying writers should focus on consistently producing high-quality work. It’s a bit of a “best of both worlds” statement. Today, I’m refining my position: Quantity is a fool’s errand.

I’ve shared The Writing Cooperative’s publishing acceptance rate for the past few weeks. This past weekend we hit a new low: 20%.

An unprecedented 32 submissions (30%) this week were articles already published on Medium that had little or nothing to do with writing. Previously published articles don’t receive a new publication date when accepted into a publication; they just get added to the timeline whenever they were originally published. Even if I did accept one of these stories, they wouldn’t show in the timeline. So, what’s the point?

To make things worse, almost all of these previously published stories that had nothing to do with writing were submitted by two writers. In a rare move, I revoked their submission privileges without notice.

What does this have to do with the quality vs. quantity debate? Well, just about all of these previously-published submissions were published on Medium in the last few days.

There’s a lot of advice out there telling writers to publish daily — I’ve even published a fair share in The Writing Cooperative. It’s important to note that I often publish things I disagree with. The publication is geared to advise allwriters, my opinions notwithstanding.

That said, let me clarify: Writing daily is terrible advice. While I believe it’s important to write as often as possible, there’s no way anyone other than a paid professional journalist should publish daily. Full stop.

If you want to be a successful writer, one who builds an audience of readers, you must dedicate yourself to quality. It doesn’t matter how often you publish if it’s uninteresting or unreadable. Yes, we all have to start somewhere, and we get better the more we write, but publishing is a whole other ballgame. Publish when things are ready, not when they are written.

Medium now allows me to nominate stories to boost throughout the platform. These stories apparently get significantexposure, views, engagement, and monetization. So far, nine of the ten stories I nominated were boosted. I take this newfound responsibility seriously and want to promote the best of the best.

To consider something boost-worthy, I look for stories with a unique voice that lean into the writer’s personal experience. Stories like Finding My Voice Again by Aisha Yusuf, Why Independent Reading Is So Essential In School by Walter Bowne, and Don’t Shy Away From Tacky Topics by Cali Bird are all boost-worthy, fascinating stories. These are the types of stories I want to publish, the types of stories I encourage you to write.

Look, my opinion isn’t the be-all-end-all when it comes to writing. But, with the generative tools available, the only way to succeed as a writer is to lean into quality. Our experiences, our tone, and our voice are the only things that separate us from the AI. If we, as writers, don’t lean into these differences, then why bother calling ourselves writers?

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Last Week’s Responses

Thank you for your kind words about walking away from my daily writing streak last week. I want to point out this great comment from Shehraj Singh:

I agree with taking breaks when needed to recharge, but it’s important to not let it turn into a habit. Try setting a deadline for your break and start planning your writing schedule ahead of time.

I’m taking this advice to heart and pledging to start my journaling again by April 1. Let’s see how it develops this time around.

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Random Links

I’ve been collecting interesting links for the last few weeks with the intent they might end up in the newsletter. However, they have yet to really bubble up to the top of my brain enough to dedicate an entire article to them. I’m going to share them this week with a very quick commentary. Do you like this kind of thing? Should it be a regular part of the newsletter? Let me know.

• How Do Authors Come Up With Character Names? Names fascinate me, especially names that stand out and are unique. Naming characters is an art unto itself.

• WGA Would Allow Artificial Intelligence In Scriptwriting, As Long As Writers Maintain Credit Remember what I said about quality? Yeah. Also, this is basically the climax of She-Hulk.

• James Webb Telescope Captures The Same Galaxy At Three Different Points In Time In A Single Mind-Boggling Image This is like real-life time travel, and I’m here for it. I imagine it may inspire a few fun stories, too. Take it and run, sci-fi writers!

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Programming Note

Later this week, I’m setting up This Week In Writing on its very own domain! Look for future editions at WeekInWriting.com — it will still send out and run through Substack, but I’ll add the full domain support.

I have no idea how this may or may not affect emails or what the sending address will be next week. So, if Tuesday rolls around and you can’t find the email, please check-in. I’ll include the new sending-from address in next week’s issue so you can update your email settings accordingly. You can also find every issue on the Substack app.

See you next week! (Hopefully.)