Writing Life

I’m Taking A Break From Medium

with Gustave Deresse

Story rediscovered a month post-composition. Other than the title, publishing it directly as it was. And of course, I never took the break. Funny part is, I still want to — just not enough to stop working. You might wish to scroll through this one to find the part that is good for you; I believe in you and your intention.

I’m outside, sitting on the swing. Or at least, I was. I’ve since moved to the other chair.

I’m not sure why I lied. It’s an interesting day.

Not really.

I mean, it is.

But not in the way I originally meant it.

I was supposed to be walking to the store right now. Kitty wanted out. So, here we are. It’s 12:54pm on a Thursday.

It’s almost my bedtime.

I write to you in Microsoft Word. Mobile.

This is where I’ll be until she knocks for us to go inside.

My mother needs lemon juice for dinner, and I enjoy the walk. It’ll be good to move soon.

Kitty.

I’m kidding.

She can’t hear us.

Nether can we hear each other, you and I. This could be remedied by half, if I recorded my voice for you.

But I won’t.

Not yet.

I’m back on the swing.

The sun hides, the temperature is down, and the kitty doesn’t give a care. She’s comfortable.

I sing her name, unknowing if she understands.

Coincidentally, she comes to sit with me. She’s not allowed up here. But someone tell me what could I possibly do about it. Her decision has been made.

It’s out of my hands.

My parents keep a beautiful yard.

I’m convinced my current LinkedIn photo is wrong. I don’t understand why, but still. What if the feeling is right? This entire platform feels out of my league.

I don’t profession very well.

Hey, everyone got YOLO into the dictionary. I’m using ‘profession’ as a verb.

Just be glad I didn’t butcher profess.

And this is why I don’t feel up to the LinkedIn standard. To be fair, it’s kind of an inhuman environment.

The closest thing it has to our humanity is social media.

The italics make it look snarky.

Social media.

And that itself is barely natural.

You understand.

Some treat it naturally, but most lose themselves behind a persona, one they’d never planned to craft in the first place.

She’s not moving. I’ll be tired soon.

She’s declawed, so she can’t really go anywhere except for the backyard. We get stray cats and raccoons. She knows I have this sense of urgency right now, revels in it!

I gotta get some lemon juice, Kitty.

In all cases, I’m taking a break from Medium.

I know, I’ve said this more than once already, then barely lasted a week away. This time it’s serious.

Truth is, I spend too much time on here. I love reading new writers, do my best catching up with the works of writers I enjoy, and publish once to four times a day — depending on how I feel. My progress with the books and courses I wanted to complete before has been slow.

Neither have I started that story for Clarkesworld Magazine, as told I would in this story here.

I know this will hurt my position with the algorithm. It only takes one or two days without posting to go from 100 views a day to 10.

I’ll continue publishing daily in The Prompt Headlines.

But that’s it.

This will also help train me for writing everything directly into Roam Research, my note-taking program of choice. I want everything I write to start there.

The Medium habits were just too strong when I started using it. It’s too tempting to go straight for the ‘Write a story’ here.

I also need to populate my LinkedIn profile.

Not to mention write a handful of stories on Vocal+ while I have the three free months of premium they offered me to come back.

I wonder how many people they had to lose to start handing those out.

Usually, I’d only do their challenges anyway. But I’ve been exploring how they set up their categories, and I kind of like it.

If you’re on Vocal, give me a shout.

I’ll subscribe to you.

So, if I had to list everything I want to get through before returning to Medium full time:

1. Finish Jason Capital’s program Impulse Words, including all the exercises I’ve already skipped. I’m giving myself 30 days. Don’t worry, I keep a critical mind throughout everything he teaches.
2. Finish Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene M. Schwartz. I got 14 pages in and haven’t touched it since. It’s too bad, because it was fire to read.
3. Fix up my Otter.ai transcripts and set up the importing tool in Roam.
4. Transfer all of my present Medium writings into Roam.
5. Start linking every golden word included in the emails I receive from Brian Kurtz. That man is one of my favourite parts of this planet.
6. Start posting on Instagram again, probably prepare posts to last a good year.
7. Make a YouTube channel for Sudoku videos. I’ll probably talk quietly in the background. Or I’ll play classical music — both. We’ll see what happens.
8. Everything LinkedIn and making money again before I go completely broke. My profile is actually not looking terrible, courtesy of their 24-hour free course offer for ‘Rock Your LinkedIn Profile’

I also have a ton of different audiobooks on the go, but those are for walks and hold no bearing on my decision to take a break from Medium. Half of them I’ve already listened to once or thrice before.

Don’t judge, or assume what it is I’m getting out of each. Though some of them will be obvious.

These include:

• The Daily Laws by Robert Green
• Nudge: The Final Edition by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
• The Hermeticism Collection by Three Initiates, Hermes Trismegistus, and Manly P. Hall
• Mastery by Robert Green
• The Mind Illuminated by Culdasa John Yates, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves
• Spellcrafting by Arin Murphy-Hiscock
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead (translated by Robert Thurman)
• The Brain’s Way of Healing by Norman Doidge
• Save the Cat! By Blake Snyder

There are 69 titles in my Audible library, 24 of which I haven’t listened to at all, 17 more being in my wish list, and I have one credit ready to spend. I’m contemplating The One Thing by Gary Keller, but there’s really no point right now.

Maybe I should read that one and let all the others wait.

I just this moment discovered a trick to help me with my writing process.

Usually, I can’t rip my focus away from the length of lines and paragraphs. With Microsoft Word, I can switch over to web view, and goodbye margins! I can switch it back later to print layout and make all the adjustments I need.

Using Microsoft Office is a recent development for me. I’ve been paying for it all these years, but it wasn’t convenient for the way I was doing things.

Well, it turns out ProWritingAid, which I recently acquired, has a Microsoft extension.

It also turns out I love Microsoft Word.

You’ll read more about it soon!

There are too many things I want to write about at once. It’s comical, because of how often I resort to base self-expression, or worse, questionable bullshit, to fill a post. I’m chalking it down to an issue with my priorities. Something else I was zeroing in on before again placing quantity of Medium stories as a priority.

Damn, it’s really nice without the margins.

I also figured out you can create different types of collapsible headings and subheadings which make it easier to organize your work. There are templates for everything you could possibly need, the formatting is all transferable to other platforms, and if you connect your OneDrive account, then it works smoothly for switching between desktop and the app.

The Word app is exceptionally well designed, offering you all the necessary options and more without cluttering the screen.

Gah!

Software, books, courses, recording equipment, animals, plants, gems, movies, thoughts, people and tv — you can review anything. Anyone who’s read me enough knows how critical I can be, on both positive and negative ends of the spectrum.

Surely, I’d be more productive to write actual reviews of things that aren’t me. Plus, anything which can be written about, it can be done from various angles seeking to answer all different sets of questions.

Every natural thing has multiple symbols attached. There are unlimited ideas for writing materials.

We can even talk history, or alternate history! I wouldn’t mind doing an iceberg one day. Shit, I kind of want to make some memes all around. It’d all be fun.

Maybe some erotica, if I’m ever forced.

Holy, not to mention the personal stories I want to share. Unfortunately, a bunch will have to be labeled fiction. Sadder still, is how many of them will never be included under this name. It’s too closely tied to my real identity. Again, not that I’d be bothered if anyone found out, but this way keeps things simple for others.

I should probably channel some of this writing energy into contacting some distant friends.

Neither did I start going to the library. I’ve only taken up bringing my laptop outside.

The elements and the animals seem to help me with staying in the zone. I was wasting precious energy trying not to get depressed in my parent’s messy basement all the time.

I love them, but I need to get myself out of here. I’m realizing I can’t realistically keep fucking around.

I guess I should probably also drop another track this month.

Some river water recordings I have are in need of some good old Native-American flute.

My piano skills have also improved since the last piece I released. And I finally figured out some decent settings to produce quality guitar. I’ll record some vocals at the next opportunity.

These are rare.

The last time I sang anything, I almost hurt myself. Unpracticed throat muscles become weak.

It’s the body.

I know. I’m rambling. But there’s nothing else I can do.

So I’m trying to think to myself, what else is there? Just, anything I might want to say before I go.

Well, thank you, for one.

Whether you’re here to support me, or because you actually enjoy my work, I appreciate you. It means a lot to have this connection with anyone.

And I’m not just saying that.

Something about writing on Medium has made me less pathological than I was a even just a year ago. I was fortunate to come across the right people.

Margie Willis, Carolyn Hastings, Tabula Rasa, augmented man, Arbab Z., A Shayens Abran, others…

I have a weird thing going with Leonora Watkins right now. I’m half convinced she’s planning something to take me out for disrespecting her one day in the comments on one of her post.

She’s cool though.

I gave her a hard time on an article she wrote about makeup not counting towards the act of lying. Well, whether my perspective was right, wrong, or even mattered at all, I don’t think I came out of that situation looking too good.

Truth is, I can be an asshole.

My best defence: I get it from my mother.

Track her down and tell her what I said. Shouldn’t be that hard, plus she’ll agree.

Honestly, I started the day not wanting to be part of Medium anymore. Now I don’t want to leave.

But I must.

Otherwise, nothing will get done.

This is my third time preparing to take a break. It’s almost the same as when I was working in the kitchen. I don’t take breaks when working on my feet. The moment you sit down, it’s game over, baby.

There’s a lot I have to say about the food industry in Canada. Good thing I’m not in the United-States!

Yep.

An interesting experiment would be to open up my own restaurant. Until I can do that, I must keep my mouth shut about many things.

That said, I know for a fact most problems in restaurants come from cheap and greedy owners. Knowing what I know now, I often question why — or how — I still eat out.

It’s no wonder so many people get sick. I’ve made enemies over caring about cleanliness alone.

Some of these places have their own miniature political system and everything. It’s ridiculous.

You do learn a lot about people.

What am I going on about?

My mind keeps coming back to things I want to tell you, but know I shouldn’t. Trust me, I’ve opened up considerably since I started here in 2019.

Some information just doesn’t help anyone.

I have yet to extract all the necessary lessons of my past experiences to repackage them into a positive light.

For you.

Never underestimate the value of someone’s attention. This is in large why I’m taking a break.

To think about what I’ve done.

The time nears that I’ll be ready once more.

I can feel it.

Oh!

She’s up and ready to go.

First, I want to tell you about my next project. Or un-project.

I’m compiling Medium stories in need of my deletion; the aim is to demand one thousand claps as price.

By estimation, there’ll be a minimum of fifty stories on the list.

Including this one.

They’ll be categorised in order of reason — mainly it will be about negative programming.

Everything will be explained.

I let the cat in.

But I’m still outside.

It’s exciting, thinking about the future. The potential of it, at least. Nothing is certain.

But for simplicity, let’s assume I live.

I’ll have shed my old ways, and new ones will be fixed into place.

“Fixed”.

Temporarily.

The brain changes, no matter what you do. You can reinforce all the cell connections you please, it won’t prevent you from evolving. The matter is set for it.

I’ll be a new person — loyal, loving, more seductive.

I mean, a better storyteller.

No more pushing you to doubt me in case I’m ever wrong. You have minds; may you use them, or ignore me entirely.

I’ll source my information.

You’re free to double check my every word, if it gives you any comfort.

I know I’ve digressed, but forget from what. This is the benefit of having it in writing.

Picking stories to delete won’t be a challenge, I know how each makes me feel. Many will beg me to stay.

Their fates will lie with you, reader.

One thousand claps.

It’s not a lot, but it would be my first Medium story with quadruple digits.

And then it would be gone.

I like it.

Worst case scenario, I study the growing number of readers who haven’t clapped, and ponder its true meaning.

This will lead into stories selling you on why you should care about this act.

Ooh, wait.

There’s a new plan.

Any story on the list that gets one thousand claps will be deleted. The faster they disappear, the sooner I’m comforted there are still people on Earth who care about their greater impact.

Fine, that’s dramatic. Even then, there are plenty of caring folk in existence. And who am I?

The truth remains.

It’ll be a horrendous shame if the pieces are never destroyed.

But I can’t pass up this chance for a safe experiment.

At least, I think it’ll be safe.

Once compiled, if I notice the list generates too large a mass of chaos, then it’s going out without an audience.

Perhaps this would be the smartest course of action anyway.

This entire scenario is absurd.

Professional business owners on LinkedIn could easily catch wind, and then what?

Maybe they’ll like it.

I never know.

There’s a dream I remember from last night.

I was confronted by a wolf.

It was outside a friend’s building. I was lying face up on the pavement, playing around with a dog in the parking lot, when suddenly it appeared.

I was freaked out and struggled while pulling the knife from my pocket. My hand was functioning poorly.

It approached in lunges.

Trying to stab it, I could only feel weakness, and guilt.

It was small, perhaps the size of a large dog. It came at me a few times, but it was a dream, and nothing happened.

It eventually ran away.

Usually, it would’ve been a bear. The last time there were wolves, it was a pack, and I did nothing but run.

Running was the majority of my bad dreams growing up.

In most cases, they’re now my best dreams, as my mind creates fantastical scenes as I go.

I can’t seem to recreate them with words.

It frustrates.

Faith & Critical Thought

A short word on religions and cults.

Many act as a light in the dark, something we all need — often, they supplied the darkness too.

The real problem arises when they usurp the truth to attract you to their cause.

This isn’t always for your benefit.

I don’t doubt the underlying messages of numerous spiritual texts.

Always be wary of the whole package.

Use your mind at all cost. It’s worth the energy.

You know if it’s right or wrong.

I believe in you.

Warmly,

— G

P.S. Never mind.

About the Author:

🔍 ㅤGustave Deresse Is a Truthful & Theatrical Métis-Canadian Writer, Editor, Wanderer, Cook, and Musical Artist Who Enjoys Exploring Themes as Spirituality, Logic, Life, Philosophy, Nature, Neurocognitive Psychology, Creativity, Writing, Humour, Inspiration, Music, Wellbeing — and the Weird.

P.S. Sooner or later, I tend to edit my pieces. Subscribe to my stories by email for the best chance to catch my original works!

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I appreciate you, take care.

Sincerely, — G