Inspiration

What Bothers Me as a Writer, and What I Want to do About It

Creative ideas from Britni Pepper

There is a battalion of super robot clones loose on the Internet, and their name is Dr Mehmet Yildiz. No one person could possibly have so much energy without a nuclear reactor inside and a litre of coffee to kick off the day, each and every day.

Oh, and no sleeping!

Dr Mehmet has issued a challenge, seeking to gain information on what motivates Medium writers:

1 — As a writer, my major pain points and struggles are…

• Finding time to write in the everyday rush of work and social duties. My best times are early morning when I have a little time free of distraction.
• Balancing my effort between writing and editorial work on the ILLUMINATION publications. We have to create our own systems to handle various tasks, as Medium’s own functions are inadequate to cope with the volume.

2 — As a writer, my desires and aspirations are …

• To entertain my readers.
• To complete the writing projects I have gathered over the years.
• To tell stories in a workmanlike fashion.
• To help readers consider fresh points of view; to move beyond the familiar.
• To earn some extra income.

3 — Here are my top five stories that received the most views…

• By far my best story is this whimsical little tale of travel lust. Based on a true story, it is set in a magical little piece of California perfection. It has earnt me well over $2 000, and continues to bring in a welcome trickle of a few cents a day. I guess people like reading about good travel.

• It is a sad fact of reading life that we all want to learn how to do better, and a sure-fire headline is something like “How I made thousands writing on Medium”. Writing these stories is easy, but rarely are any secrets given away. I think that unless one has thousand of followers, the good stories come out of chance and some quirk that sends them viral. God knows I have written hundreds of stories which I really like, but nobody else does. Nevertheless, I wanted to share my success, and for every reader who clicks on the headline to see how I did it, there is a writer who wants to reach out to thousands and will lift their game until they do it.

• A variation on the theme. I keep my statistics obsessively in a spreadsheet, and I watch the graphs wiggle up and down. For a few months, I was doing very well indeed.

• Last year was a horror year in more ways than one, but before the pandemic set in, it was a year of high temperatures, low rainfall, and savage bushfires. Much of the Australian population choked on smoke, and — believe it or not — we were all doing our best to wear masks to protect our lungs. Naturally, climate change alarmists were out in force, telling everybody that this was our future, things would only get worse year after year unless we heeded their calls to do all sorts of radical things right now. This summer was mild, wet, a welcome relief, and nothing like the dire predictions. Do we get these people apologising and telling everyone they were wrong and the situation isn’t quite so apocalyptic? Do we hell.

• I’m a photographer. It’s great to get the perfect shot right there in the camera, in the moment, perfectly exposed, composed, and framed. Real life is rarely so good; most photographs need a bit of work in post to be their very best. Here’s my simple technique for making ordinary images into ones that jump out at the viewer.

• Storytelling is what I do best, I think. Silly, funny stories that tease the reader and pay off in an unexpected way. Here’s one that did well:

4 — Here are my great stories that did not receive the required level of attention from readers…

• Another silly story. I love this one. It has some good lines, and it brings women (almost) up to the same level as men in a certain field of endeavour.

• This is possibly the most serious story I’ve written. Happiness and confidence can come in unexpected forms, and the abstracted, simplified, summarised models of life we are taught as children don’t cover everything. The real message is: “To become what you truly are, you must first come out of what you are not.” Most of us, I think, are hiding ourselves in a fog of ignorance about what we really are.

• I have a secret place in Paris. It puzzles even the locals. I go there whenever I’m in the City of Light, and it is perfect. As, of course, are so many things about Paris. If there is one thing I find most personally galling about this pandemic, it is the almost complete cessation of overseas travel. I want to return, shed some more tears over Notre Dame — tears of joy that it was saved — and eat some divine food off a table about the same size as my handbag.

• My teenage years were a little out of the ordinary. It was strict, but I loved it. Here’s the beginning of my rebellion.

• I love Japan. It is enchanting, elegant, puzzling, and never boring. It is like living in a science fiction film. If I wasn’t able to be an Australian, I’d live in Japan, where politeness is an artform, the food is divine, and every day is a new adventure. This shorty story is a taste of Japan, and it’s worth reading right to the end.

5 — These ten people read my stories regularly. I am grateful to them.

• Mark Kelly, Joe Luca, Desiree Driesenaar, Geetika Sethi, Maria Rattray, The Garrulous Glaswegian, Dr Jeff Livingston, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Ntathu Allen, Bill Burkett — and many more whose names come up repeatedly. I can only list ten, but we both know who you are.

6 — These ten writers I follow regularly.

• All of the above, plus Dr. Preeti Singh, Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh, Agnes Laurens, Floyd Mori, Edward Robson, PhD, Tree Langdon, Rebecca Stevens A., Dew Langrial, Sherry McGuinn, P.G. Barnett and, again, many more. I have a list of about 750, and I cannot read every word by every writer. But I do my best…

7 — I plan on writing about these topics. My reasons …

• My life. I’m most comfortable in the first person, talking about some of the adventures, the people, the places, the philosophies in my life. I’ve been around the world nine times. I’ve seen some amazing things and met some golden people.
• My philosophy. I don’t believe in a lot of the things that so many accept without question. I’ve thought deeply about many things for years on end, and quite frankly most people believe a load of rubbish simply because someone they admired told them so when they were young. I think the true nature of the cosmos deserves more than fairy stories.
• Writing. Communication is a hallmark of our species. We tell stories for many reasons and we can always become better at it. I have a few things I’d like to pass on. Many more I have yet to learn and I’ll talk about those when I have time.
• Silly stuff. Jokes, puns, embarrassments, whimsy.
• Sex. Writing erootica is fun. I like to tease the readers, maybe make them think about a new fantasy, share my own adventures, make up fresh ones even more ridiculous…

8 — I plan to read more about these topics. My reasons …

• Writing for profit. What I do is write for fun. If there were more money in it, maybe it would be a full-time thing. My dream is to find a cruise ship with a big comfy chair, explore the world in style, write about it and get paid to do so.
• Writing for style. I could be more concise, more entertaining, more graceful, more relevant. My writing is self-indulgent twaddle for the most part, and I am grateful for those who put up with me.
• Technology and science. I can take a lot of this. It is a wondrous world we live in and changing faster than we can plan. What a ride!
• History and culture. The more I know, the more I understand. I have a long way to go, so I should get started, hey?

9 — I want to read more from these writers.

• Ulf Wolf, Keri Mangis, Phil Rossi, Jay Toran

10 — If I were the owner of Medium, I’d implement these features to support writers and readers…

• More transparency. What sort of algorithms are in use? Sometimes it seems like it’s just a bunch of people rolling dice.
• More tools for analysis. Yes, we get a lot of stats, but it would help me in my job as an editor if I could automate a few tasks. Open up the API a little more so apps like IFTTT and Zapier can give me the data I need.
• Tips. It’s all very nice to read something and know the reader will get a half cent or something, but I’d love to be able to mark some writers for a bigger share of my monthly subscription.
• More of a feed. I follow hundreds of writers, but I rarely get to see their stuff unless I hunt it down. The recent blogroll feature is a step in the right direction, but it’s a pain in the bum to have to go to someone’s profile to see what they have written recently. There is so much on Medium and only so many hours in the day. A bit more efficiency, please!

Thank you for reading about my grumbles and complaints. Really, I’m having a ball here. Things could be better, but they are pretty bloody good to begin with. So many fantastic writers on Medium, and I guess what I really want is more time to read and write.

Me time

I need to write more. I’ve written a few stories on Amazon, and I have three short works that are in the pipeline. Keep an eye on my Amazon author page:

In the meantime, you are paying five bucks a month for access to Medium. What are you hanging around here for? Go, read. Go, write.

Britni