First of all, Greg — thanks for the prompt, kind and correct response to this conversation.

I love Medium, unabashedly, totally.

I am not a social networker (is that even a thing?) and have always wanted to write, but it took Medium to get me off the ground. Freelance is an arid landscape of rejection (perhaps I took a wrong turn?) and inspiration was hard to come by, but Medium gave me this gorgeous text editor (I use terms like that now — did I use it correctly?) and I am newly inspired. I’ve found many scribblings by other ‘small authors’ that I have enjoyed immensely and some of them seem to have enjoyed mine — miracle of miracles!

I’m happy here and not sure what that means or what to do with it, but there it is. Happy. Love Medium.

I’ve been following the ‘small author’ issue with interest (because I now consider myself an author and I am small) and would love to find ways to broaden our audience. I recognize that the quality of the work is paramount to this effort — my job — and I also recognize the importance of my own networking and marketing (which I seriously suck at and don’t even much care about — even though I wouldn’t kick fame and cash out of bed for eating crackers).

So, if there is some techno-fabulous way for you to find me a larger, preferably wealthy and generous, audience, I would be forever in your debt (not financially, you know what I mean).

In the meantime, however, I still love Medium. You guys have done an awesome thing that I don’t understand and don’t want to. I just want to sit here and type away and read the ramblings of others so thank you for that.

Tiny caveat — I don’t love highlights. I love the idea of highlights, I enjoy highlighting and I’m flattered when I’m highlighted, but a few of my essays look like crap now because it’s just a long list of highlights.

Suggestion, from someone who hasn’t a clue — what if the highlight only showed up when the cursor was placed on the highlighter’s icon in the sidebar? Then the piece retains that clean, beautiful Medium look for everyone reading.

Back to the mash — love writing here, love reading here, and any problem I’ve had has been immediately, happily, and effectively addressed. Thanks.

It’s a work in progress, it’s very exciting. I’m all in.