VERSION TWO

About Me — Margie Willis

as I prepare for re-entry . . .

Photo of author by author.

I joined this website, June 2021, and the About Me I wrote feels off since I was clueless about this Medium scene, at first (as most writers are). I’ve been wanting to re-do that piece.

Now I have a solid reason: my life is about to change.

In my first About Me I strongly identified with my feral wilderness existence for the past eleven years, but I was evicted in an evil manner just now. So, I’m headed back to civilization, and living on a golf course will be a dramatic shift compared to my tumbledown shack in the sticks. I guess this is my sign that I’ve written all my rustic stories for now. Time to gain new perspectives so I can write some new flavors of stories.

Shaking out fresh stories: that’s what we writers do.

I have spent my life doing spontaneous stuff. I started riding my bicycle across the USA on the spur of the moment, with no planning. I would convince myself I’m furthering my writing journey by gaining authentic life experience. Not to say writers need to peddle their asses thousands of miles, but my firm belief: writers with an adventurous spirit will go out and harvest fresh stories.

When a friend suggested I join Medium last year, within days of reading the other writers here, I knew I was in for a paradigm shift. On other websites, I have been one of the top writers and I never bothered to edit my work.

I was the typical impatient jackrabbit who couldn’t wait to see my words posted, so I’d slap up that first-pass draft that comes bubbling out before we dig into what we’re really trying to say. That plain-Jane rough draft containing no wordplay, no manicuring, no thesaurus thumbing.

Despite my writing complacency I was better than most writers.

At Medium, there are TONS of better writers than me and I constantly need to up my game. After thirty-plus years of technical writing and ten-plus years of creative writing, joining Medium is the best thing that ever happened to shake up my writing. Sure, this website has all the requisite bullshit you will find…