I Met The Highlighting Master

We were like two ships passing in the night

David Perlmutter is a rite of passage for every newbie on Medium.

You can’t call yourself a Medium writer unless he’s highlighted one of your stories, and it’s an unsolved mystery how he highlights over five thousand stories every day. I can barely get through reading 5 to 10 stories a day

Having one of your stories highlighted by David is like getting those first hairs above your lip, your first period, or your first kiss. One day you’re a newbie on Medium and then viola! you’re welcomed by David Perlmutter.

Milestone #1: David highlights my story

I didn’t know any of this when I wrote my first story on Medium. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I watched a YouTube tutorial by Zulie Rane and clicked on whatever Zulie button told me to press or click.

Confession: I’ve had a fear of technology for the past 15 years or so and had a self-limiting belief that I was terrible at anything related to technology, yet Zulie held my hand learning to use the Editor tools and formatting my story.

The next morning over my cup of coffee David’s light green highlights gave me that dopamine boost, and I had no idea how this person named David Perlmutter even knew I had stayed up to write a my first story at 1 a.m.

It was coincidence, I thought, we were two ships passing in the night.

Milestone #2: David becomes my subscriber

I was excited to have my first person clap for one of my stories. I was pumped up when David became my first subscriber — this was before I became hip to his system of highlighting a writer’s story as soon as they enter his mailbox.

At first, I didn’t realize how David knew I’d published a new story. It felt like he had some telepathic power to know when I reached the end of writing a story and clicked the publish button. It was like he was following me around.

I even published a story at 3 a.m. one morning, and I was curious if his green, blue or purple highlights would appear in minutes… he highlighted it purple.

I’d publish a story, he’d highlight it. Publish another, he’d highlight it. It was nice but also bizarre, and I couldn’t figure out … how the heck he did it.

David Perlmutter was like microwave popcorn, instant coffee, or a slurpee at 7-Eleven. I didn’t know then what I know now: he’d clicked that subscribe button on my profile home page and waited to receive my story to highlight the pearls I’d written at one, two or three a.m.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

But I finally realized one night the genius of his strategy. I’d been alternating reading stories on my laptop and phone, and I wasn’t able to see the circles of my favorite writers on my phone and I was missing many of their new stories.

Boom! I realized how David was reading my stories so telepathically fast. The subscribe button on the envelope on my home page! Just don’t write a story about this strategy because you’ll get comments for weeks on this strategy!

Milestone #3: Meeting David Perlmutter

Then I met The Highlighting Master. You could say we were like two ships passing in the night, me writing a story about having a 1980’s-themed themed birthday by watching Different Strokes and The Facts of Life with my family, and David stopping a moment from his prolific highlighting.

We also watched a John Cusack movie. He was my favorite actor from the late 1980s through around 2012 before he disappeared from movie screens. You can read about what happened to him in my well-researched story.

We watched the “Martian Child” and ate some cake. I wrote a story about my 53rd birthday and woke up with a comment from The Master Highlighter. Oh my! I was so excited I forgot the mindfulness mantra I was mumbling to myself.

I almost gagged on my Cheerios and spilled coffee on my PJ’s that I had to do some mindful pacing in a circuitous loop around my kitchen and living room for a while just to recover.

Finally, my breathing returned to normal.

No, The Highlighting Master didn’t wish me Happy Birthday, but he left me a comment about my story. I was super stoked to receive a comment from him.

It was like a super busy guy taking a break to have a conversation with me.

Two ships passing in the night

I stared at the screen and pinched myself to make sure it was real. Yes, David Perlmutter had left me a comment. I was curious to read what he said since it was his first comment to a story.

What caused us to be like two ships in the night? Lots of factors can lead two people to be like two ships crossing in the night. Sometimes, there is a hole that needs to be filled in your heart, and that was the case with most of my relationships in my 20’s until I filled the hole and wrote a story about it.

David even highlighted the turning point in my life:

She told me if I was ever in a crisis, I could pray, randomly open the bible, and God would speak to me.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” my twenty-one-year self said.

He’s not just mindlessly highlighting, folks. He’s a wallflower like me. He sees things and understands. He takes things in and processes them. Oh sorry… You want to hear how David and I met on a serendipitous Saturday morning.

I was in my PJ’s and having a late-night instant coffee and high-card toast… he was in Canada.

We met through a confluence of books and movies. A portal opened up the universe after I watched Martian Child and wrote about how it’s a great parenting movie, and it reached its customary place somewhere in David’s mailbox.

And then I experienced what few lucky people Medium writers have been fortuitous enough to experience: My next milestone of Medium. I got a two-sentence reply to the story I’d written from David Perlmutter:

“The Martian Child” is based on the book by science fiction writer David Gerrold, who was inspired in part by his parenting journey.” — David Perlmutter

It was pithy and to the point. I knew from reading some of David’s stories that he is a Science Fiction writer, so we crossed paths at the intersection of my interest in John Cusack and his interest in a Science Fiction Novellete.

It was the greatest dopamine high

Through an online platform, a Medium newbie met the Highlighting Master through an intraplatform discussion. I felt a huge dopamine rush or it might have been the Ho Ho I was eating from the box in my secret hiding place.

Or probably a combination of both. Plus my morning coffee. But I felt a buzz, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it (to be honest) the rest of the day.

David’s commend led me to google the book, and I found out it won four awards for Best Novellete in 1995. That led me to google David Gerrold, and I discovered he lived in the same city, Chicago, as John Cusack.

Could John Cusack and David Gerrold have met? If they hadn’t met then I bet Cusack must have read Gerrold’s book preparing for Martian Child and then … I realized something.

I was interacting with The Highlighting Master (true it was in my head so far and not in-person), but now it was my turn to respond to him. I laid back down in my bed to process my emotions when, suddenly, I got a terrible cramp.

Here I was about to communicate with The Highlighting Master … and my foot and ankle were in a locked position and my hammy was next. I managed to get up, walk around, and drink some water. I looked for the foam product I use when I get cramps on a hike. It was empty.

I’m one of those guys who forget to drink water all day, and here I am about to interact with David Perlmutter, and I am walking and walking around to get rid of a cramp or … was I anxious to communicate with The Highlighting Master?

This felt like a rare privilege, thanks to my decision to have a 1980s-themed birthday, to have a chance to talk with David Perlmutter … and to ask the Highlighting King a question!

I gathered in all my thoughts

I stuck some bread in the toaster to give me time to think of what to say. My wife told me to cut back on the carbs. It didn’t both me this time because I was focusing on what to say to the Master Highlighter in my response to him.

I sat down on the kitchen table and ate the toast with butter and jelly. Drank coffee. Meditated. Yeah, I could say something perfunctory like thanks, and I’ll check out David Gerrold’s book.

But this felt like I was talking to Banksy, the England-based street artist whose name and identity remains unknown and is the subject of speculation. I had to say something original.

The truth is, I’d been drawn in by the mystery of The Master Highlighter long before it became a trend (one I may have started by writing about his strategy of highlighting stories as soon as they enter his mailbox) to write about him.

Of course, I didn’t mention him by name … and now I was about to interact with David Perlmutter, and I didn’t want us to be like two ships passing in the night. Actually, it was morning as I just said. What was I going to say to the man who added so much colorization to my reading experience?

What I said to The Highlighting Master

Then I knew what I had to ask him. It felt subversive. Like asking Banksy to explain the meaning behind one of his street art pieces or to ask about his stenciling techniques … I knew I had to ask David this one question.

I wasn’t being funny, or satirical. It was just something I’d been curious about for a long time, and you’ve maybe wondered about it too.

“Do you have a favorite highlighting color?”

There. I asked what I wanted to know. I waited. Checked my notifications every few minutes to see if he’d replied. Nothing

I regretted I didn’t ask him the $1,000,000 question: How does he highlight so many stories per day? And does he have an organized system? Or does he remember what he reads from all of his highlighting each day?

But I got nothing but radio silence. The mystery of his favorite color remain unsolved.

Some days he highlights in green, other days blue or purple, and tomorrow it might just be yellow.

I’ve been paying attention to his highlighting closely, and I think his favorite color of all is blue or purple, but maybe it’s yellow or red.

Thanks for reading my story.

You might also like:

Or check out my YouTube video on a common writing problem.