Find links below to all current stories and articles that I have posted on Medium to date.
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My Journey to Bedsit-Land Part Two: Welcome to the House of Misfits
Walk More, Live Better: The Health Benefits of Going For a Walk
So, what is happening to Twitter X? I don't think that I will ever understand the way the algorithm of Twitter X works. I'm not the only one, given the comments from others that I find in my timeline.
Here are some things that I have noticed recently.
1) I keep seeing a lot of posts over and over again, often twenty-four to forty-eight hours old. There is no option on Twitter X to see posts in time or date order. There is also no option to see recent posts in chronological order.
2) These old posts seem to be from the big accounts—users with tens of thousands of followers. By the time I see them, there are typically several thousand comments. It is not worth replying to, as no one will see it.
It has been a while since I posted, but I do have an excuse. Well, two excuses, actually. First, I have a book to write. Well, I'm trying to write. For now, the book is my priority, and it takes up a lot of time, as any aspiring author will know.
Next, I was in the process of writing a second book when I realised that these true stories might be more effective as articles. After reaching twenty-six thousand words, I have decided to set it aside.
Which led me to the website for writers and readers, Medium.
What is Medium?
I went to their website to find their definition of what they offer.
Medium is a home for human stories and ideas. Here, anyone can share insightful perspectives, useful knowledge, and life wisdom with the world—without building a mailing list or a following first. The internet is noisy and chaotic. Medium is quiet yet full of insight. It’s simple, beautiful, collaborative, and helps you find the right audience for whatever you have to say.
I decided that the best place to go to find out more was YouTube. I mean, you can usually find someone on YouTube who has made a video about their experience. I was right, but some videos looked like clickbait. They offered a magic formula. Just do what they do, and you can do the same.
Well, no, I don’t think it is like that.
There are times when you just have to write. Last night a scene came to me out of the blue, and I just had to write it down because otherwise I would probably have forgotten it. So, around midnight, I ended up writing about 900 words of dialogue between the two main characters in the book that is my first attempt at fiction.
I am finding that I am not writing the story from start to finish in one go, in that while I have the story in mind, a beginning, middle, and end, things tend to change as I go along. Then ideas for inclusion at any point in the story just tend to come to me. I start at the beginning of course, but at some stage, what I have already written, may need a re-write to include the new ideas. Seems like an anarchic way of doing things, but that is the way that I write. I suppose it is just the way that my mind works. It doesn't give me the whole story from the start!
That's what happened last night. The dialogue I wrote will be included in a later chapter that I am still some way off from writing. The scene is written now, and other than the inevitable editing, it is waiting to be included in that chapter, whenever I get to it.
1) You ate sugar sandwiches, because jam was not available.
2) You had an aunt who would cut your hair.
3) The local library was the internet.
5) You had to put money into a coin meter for electricity.
7) You watched television pictures of a man landing on the moon.
8) The girl next door was probably your best friend.
9) There were only two, then three television channels, and even then, the adults complained that there was nothing worth watching.
10) The toilet was outside, in the backyard.
Such was life.
I went to the five for a pound charity shop this morning, and picked up another haul. However, this post is part two of my catch-up, pre-covid hauls.
Another mixed bag, two non-fiction, three fiction, but as usual, good value for money at five for a pound!
Here's what I found.
Let's start with the fiction picks.
All the ratings are from the Goodreads website (as of writing).
1) Don't Let Go, 2017, by Harlan Coben. 4.05 average review rating. 69358 ratings and 4613 GR reviews.
With unmatched suspense and emotional insight, Harlan Coben explores the big secrets and little lies that can destroy a relationship, a family, and even a town in this powerful new thriller.
Link: Don't Let Go
2) Kill Baxter, 2014, by Charlie Human. 4.04 average review rating. 457 ratings and 39 GR reviews.
The world has been massively unappreciative of sixteen-year-old Baxter Zevcenko. His bloodline may be a combination of ancient Boer mystic and giant shape-shifting crow, and he may have won an interdimensional battle and saved the world, but does anyone care? No.
Link: Kill Baxter
I must admit, I picked this book up because of the cover!
3) Rumpole On Trial, 2014, by John Mortimer. 4.22 average review rating. 752 ratings and 54 GR reviews.
As Rumpole wends his way from court to wine bar and to the matrimonial home in Froxbury Mansions, listeners find their hero jousting with the Devil as he defends eight-year-old Tracy Timson against the dire threats of the local authority, is wooed by a beautiful violin player, watches Sam Ballard peer into the future, and appears before the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Bar Council.
I don't know about the book, but that's a long sentence.
Link: Rumpole On Trial
Now, for the two non-fiction. These are both by (former?) actress, comedian, and latter-day author Ruby Wax.
4) A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled, 2016. 3.77 average review rating. 3885 ratings and 300 GR reviews.
In A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled, Ruby Wax shows us how to de-frazzle for good by making simple changes that give us time to breathe, reflect and live in the moment. It's an easy-to-understand introduction to mindfulness, weaved together with Ruby's trademark wit and humour. Let Ruby be your guide to a healthier, happier you. You've nothing to lose but your stress…
2) How to be Human, 2018. 3.71 average review rating. 3223 ratings and 281 GR reviews.
It took us 4 billion years to evolve to where we
are now. No question, anyone reading this has won the evolutionary
Hunger Games by the fact you're on all twos and not some fossil. This
should make us all the happiest species alive - most of us aren't,
what's gone wrong?
Link: How to be Human
Slight embarrassment on the back cover of this book is probably the quote recommending the book from Russell Brand. I suspect that later editions will probably change that.
This is one of my catch-up posts. I found these books in a local park about a month ago.
I mentioned in a previous post that a generous individual was leaving books in the park, usually four or five at a time. With the weather being rain, followed by more rain, to leave them in the park would only result in them getting soaked. I chose to rescue them. If I did not want them, I could always re-deliver them to a local charity shop.
I get the impression that the person leaving the books, likes a thriller, suspense, mystery, and crime.
Here's what I found.
All the ratings are from the Goodreads website (as of writing).
1) The Cuckoo's Calling, 2013, by Robert Galbraith (a pseudonym for J K Rowling). 3.89 average review rating. 579328 ratings and 37427 GR reviews.
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that.
Link: The Cuckoo's Calling
2) Win,
2021, by Harlan Coben. 4.09 average
review rating. 66715 ratings and 4865 GR reviews.
From a #1 New York Times bestselling author comes this thrilling story that shows what happens when a dead man's secrets fall into the hands of a vigilante anti-hero—drawing him down a dangerous road.
Link: Win
3) Pure Evil, 2023, by Lynda La Plante. 4.34 average review rating. 2546 ratings and 116 GR reviews.
ALL KILLERS WANT TO MAKE THE FRONT PAGE . . .
Link: Pure Evil
4) Victim Without a Face, 2014, by Stefan Ahnhem. 3.97 average review rating. 9311 ratings and 867 GR reviews.
Criminal investigator Fabian Risk has left Stockholm with his wife, Sonja, and their two children to start fresh in his hometown of Helsingborg. He has planned a six-week vacation before he starts a new job at the Homicide Department. But after only a few hours in their new home, he is asked to investigate a brutal murder.
Link: Victim Without a Face
