Member-only story
Welcome to The Odd Thing
We’re all odd here.
Hello! For those unfamiliar with me, I am Matthew Maniaci, I have been writing here on Medium since 2019, and I am the owner of the Thing a Day, in which — true to its title — I published one thing each day for (checks notes) 1,230 days. That first run ended on October 31, 2024, and while I have continued publishing the occasional story, the bulk of my writing is currently there. You are welcome to read through my backlog, it’ll give you an idea of what I am all about.
That said, I didn’t really have a landing spot for my occasional articles now that the Thing a Day is done (for now). That is, until I was thinking about what I should do about that. I don’t like publishing in other Medium publications for a variety of reasons, so trying to get back to that after three-ish years of not doing that seemed wrong — nothing against most of them, just not my flavor.
I have spent so much of my life writing a Thing a Day that I have no idea where I can publish any of the Things that I write now that I’m only writing a few of them in any given month. So, I thought to myself, “where can I publish the odd Thing that I write?”
And just like that, The Odd Thing was born.
It’s got several layers of meaning, which immediately made me like it. It’s a throwback to the Thing a Day. It’s a description of both me and many of my stories (an odd thing, so to speak). It’s a pun on the thought that led to its creation, a common turn of phrase given a different kind of life.
I love it already.
You are welcome to follow me, whether as an author or on The Odd Thing. Right now, I’m writing between two and five Things per month, so don’t expect me to churn out a daily bit of writing for you, but I like to think it’ll just be that much better when a new Thing drops.
Anyway, I hope you’ll join me on this new adventure, however slow-paced it might be (at least compared to the last one).
And now, onto the next Thing!
Be well out there.
