Why am I using Medium?

To just start writing …

I’ve made a lot of promises to myself this year and none of them more difficult to keep than the pledge to document my thoughts. This year has been massively transformational for me. For whatever reason — we don’t need to get into all that this early — I was forced to take a pretty honest look at myself, what made me tick and (begrudgingly) what I looked like to other people. I realised some things and I wanted to be proud of more of them.

One of the things I do happen to be proud of is the way I can find myself shortcuts to just get things done. I lead a pretty efficient existence, constantly looking for hacks that might speed the boring things up so I can slow the enjoyable things down. And so I decided Medium was probably the platform to help me just start writing. It seems to help the writer cut to the point — the words. And I like words.

I don’t intend to turn each of these stories into a introspective diary entry. But I’m 28, female and a journalist, so I’ve got a few tales I want to tell. There are a few topics I want to write about that are probably best belonging to me, not my employer, so this will be a good place for those.

I also think there is a group of young people in Australia that is supremely underrepresented in opinion columns. They are the people who graduated university when the GFC was gripping the world, who have only ever been told “you’re lucky to have this job” and who were tempted to believe that — once. They have been around the world more times than their HECS debts suggest and are robustly engaged in political debate and advocacy. It doesn’t matter that they’ll probably never afford a house because they’re not sure they ever want to own one. And they’re of an age now where — to be frank — they’ve figured some shit out.

I want to write stories about those people. So if you have one to tell, please drop me a line.

I’m one of them and I’m excited that Medium might connect me to some of my peers. I’m also excited to share parts of my own story — the things I’ve learned from the mistakes I’ve made. As an opinion writer, my goal is not to shock you or to be controversial. I just want to give a group of people a voice while I try to find my own. I think that’s a promise I can keep — now that I’ve started writing.