A Mirror On A Writing Life
Featured writer at Flint and Steel
How did you discover Medium and how long have you been writing here?
Medium’s been on my radar for years as a place with interesting articles, but I didn’t investigate it as a platform until 2021. I published my first story in March 2021.
What are you reading, listening to and/or watching these days?
I’m in a lazy phase
At the moment, things are busy for pandemic-related reasons — I work as a freelance editor for a publisher — so all the new stuff I’m reading is officially work. When it’s busy like this, it doesn’t leave me with the headspace to get into new books or films.
I enjoy kicking back with a cuppa and reading things that pop up in my Medium feed or chasing up the articles I’ve previously bookmarked.
Offline, I’m in a re-reading/re-viewing phase i.e being lazy. I reread the book that’s nearest or watch whatever the TV happens to give me.
What is around you while you write?
I need the world of the book
In the days I had two jobs — 200 miles apart — and did a lot of commuting, I learnt that if I wanted to continue to write (other than the work writing) then I had to take my chances wherever they popped up. I wrote several novels during those years and large parts of them were written on trains, in hotel rooms, in the corners of coffee bars — anywhere in fact where I could find a reasonably private corner.
I hate anyone hanging over my shoulder when I’m trying to write, but I’m not bothered by crowds or solitude, noise or silence.
Sometimes I’ll go mad and tidy my office, clear my desk (that takes some doing — I have acres of desktop) and put out a vase of fresh flowers, that sort of thing. It’s lovely to sit and enjoy, to meditate on life. Does it help my writing? Well no, I can’t say it does, but it doesn’t hinder it either.
When I’m writing, I need to be in the world of the book and it doesn’t much matter what’s going on around me as long as no one is actively demanding my attention.
What is your guilty pleasure(s)?
…calm rationality and logic…
At the moment, it’s variant sudoku. I got bored with sudoku years ago, but early in the covid pandemic, I fell over a YouTube channel, Cracking The Cryptic, devoted to variant sudoku — something I’d never heard of.
Captured initially by the infectious enthusiasm of its two hosts, I caught the bug, and I now often end the day with a go at a fiendish puzzle to see if I can solve it. Sometimes I can.
Simon Anthony from the channel described it thus:
A place of calm rationality and logic.
Not everyone would agree, but for the time being, variant sudoku, the harder the better, is my go-to activity for relaxation.
What must be in your fridge (and/or cupboards) at all times?
Milk! It needn’t be dairy and it needn’t be a particular type, but I drink tea and coffee by the gallon and hate it black.
If you could travel anywhere right now where would you go? (in the perfect bubble where money, covid, and the world is not an issue)
I’m torn between Mars and Australia
Ok, it’s Australia. We were planning a trip for March 2020 and were at the point of buying tickets. The only reason we held back was that Sydney was engulfed in the smoke from forest fires. We decided to postpone until August.
As we were negotiating with the airline (we were after VIP-class seats at cattle-class prices) covid came steaming in and shut down the world. A friend who had made it out there had a worrying few days scrambling to get back before she was trapped for what could have been two years.
So I’d be off to complete that missed trip and, with money no object, might even go first class by boat.
Tell us about one of your Medium articles that you loved writing, that you are the most proud about?
The first diver emerged terrified, babbling about bodies
I have been enthralled by the tale of the wreck found off the Greek island of Antikythera ever since I first heard about it. Sponge divers in 1901 temporarily sheltering from a storm decided to dive there.
A deep-sea dive in stormy waters would not have been my first choice for passing the time but thankfully it was theirs.
The first diver emerged terrified, babbling about bodies on the sea bed. They weren’t bodies, they were statues. He had found the wreck of a ship that had been down there for over 2000 years.
The waters are deep and so dangerous that the extent of the wreck wasn’t mapped until the 21st century. Its situation saved it from plundering. Even so, early exploration didn’t pinpoint the location of finds, so when someone realised the significance of a smallish crushed mechanism that was brought ashore from one of the very earliest dives, no one knew where in the vast wreck site it had been found.
It became clear this device was not a one-off. It was engineered with the ease of familiarity — the originals are judged to have been crafted probably a generation before the doomed ship set sail. Yet this is the only such mechanism ever found.
Well over a thousand years passed before an artefact of comparable complexity reappeared in the story of human history.
Suppose we hadn’t lost that skill and expertise for all those generations — where would we be now? The what-ifs are mind-boggling!
Tell us about your favorite Medium writers, ones you read on a regular basis.
Hey! That’s not a fair question! Can I list all the people I follow? I guess not. CLICK HERE for the writers I follow. They’ve all written something that caught my eye and made me want to keep them on my radar, and I tour the list regularly, if a little randomly. That said, I also like to check out the people who follow me and see if they are writers too and if so, what they write.
But yes, you’re right. There are some people whose names catch my eye when they pop up, and I usually click through to see their latest. Here are the ones that spring to mind:
Ellie Jacobson, Susan Alison, Dennett, pockett dessert, Dunelair, Kris Bedenian, Kim Zuch, Jennifer Pierce, Stuart Aken, Linda Acaster, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Pene Hodge, Diana Lotti, Will Hull, Nicole Anders, Danielle Hestand, Madeleine McDonald, Mary Chang Story Writer, kasey sparks, Divina Grey, Susan Foster, Ann Litts, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Maria Rattray, Mark Tulin, Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她), Katie Michaelson, J.J. Pryor, K. Barrett, Squeeze the Avocado … that’s nowhere near complete but I shall have to stop, or I’ll be listing writers for days.
And your favorite Medium publications to write for and why?
It depends on what I’m writing. If it’s technical stuff, then my go-tos are Illumination and The Writing Cooperative because I think they reach the people I’m targeting.
The latter in particular has the right audience for one of my pet topics: secondary rights — and the income that writers often don’t know they've earned. I worked in the area for a decade and oversaw the payment of around £30 million a year to writers. I want people to know how to access this income, it can be significant. Here’s how:
I don’t always want to write long detailed articles, and there are some superb publications that focus on short pieces.
My own take is that The Daily Cuppa is the place for feelgood stories and humour; The Shortform for more serious pieces; and there’s a group of quirky publications that take usually short and often poetic reflections on life, the universe, and everything — ones like Rainbow Salad, The Brain is a Noodle, For Awe, Six Word Photo Story Challenge, and Bazaar of the Bizarre. They’re always fun to write for and entertaining to read.
The Haven suits me for humorous stories that I can’t squeeze into 150 words.
Then there are the gems that fill the gaps between the long, the short, the focused, and the unfocused — publications where you can spread your wings as a writer and explore all sorts of areas. I have a particular affection for Counter Arts because it published my story about the Antikythera mechanism, but I also count Flint and Steel in this set.
I rarely venture into serious poetry, but when I do, Scittura is where I want it to land.
I haven’t even mentioned Feedium, Reciprocal, Mindfully Speaking. About Me Stories, or The First Time, each of which has a particular focus that appeals to me. And I can’t leave without mentioning Weeds and Wildflowers and Snapshots as the best places to document life and to capture the full colour of day-to-day living. These are two publications that provide amazing photography and fascinating insights into people’s lives.
Where else can we find you outside of Medium?
Outside of Medium, I’m usually offline. I prowl Facebook now and then but I’m not really a fan. Likewise, I have a Twitter account but I’m lazy about being active on there.
I’m a member of Hornsea Writers and you can find me on their website.
Inside Medium, I’m right here.
