Hopefully Medium writers can learn from my mistake — It’s no surprise that my most popular article among readers and writers on Medium was on a topic that Mediumites love: complaints about readers and writers on Medium. Yep, we love drama, and Medium allows us to turn what would be an illucrative rant on Facebook or Twitter into a…

On the trope of the repressed gay homophobe — “Why is he so obsessed with gay men? He must be secretly gay.” “She’s probably confused about her own sexuality, like most homophobes.” “He should just come out of the closet, then he’ll feel less jealous of gay people who are out.” It feels like I can’t read a single…

A battle with imposter syndrome. — It’s a disorienting feeling to have one of the labels that defined you for years be called into question. Ever since I received heaps of praise from my fifth grade teacher for my first real short story, I’ve considered “writer” to be one of my defining characteristics. Sometimes I’m not…

Here’s what having an anxiety disorder is really like — This photo is how I feel right now. Like there’s a sheet of plastic in front of my face, almost blocking my mouth and nose, barely letting me breathe. A lot of people misunderstand anxiety disorders. When I say I have an anxiety disorder they think I mean I get…

Plus, why it’s nonsense and what we should do about it — The enthusiastic response to my previous article (don’t worry if you haven’t read it, I’ll give a quick recap!) on the concept of the gender trinary inspired me to write this follow-up piece. I’ll be delving further into why the gender trinary is a fundamentally harmful and nonsensical idea, what…

We’re breaking from the binary just to be trapped in another box — Recently I saw someone on social media make a comment about their girlfriend, using she/her pronouns for her. They mentioned that their girlfriend is genderfluid. The commenter was immediately met with furious responses demanding to know why they used feminine terms to refer to a genderfluid person. The assumption was…

Tips for creating your fictional world — Worldbuilding can be one of the most intimidating aspects of writing a novel or short story. When the possibilities are limitless, it’s hard to know where to start. …

Four ideas to increase your productivity and creativity — Improving as a writer takes practice, and those who are serious about writing for compensation are advised to practice every day. However, it can be hard to know what to write sometimes. Here are some ideas to get those gears whirring. Journaling Many a writer has complained that they do…

It’s like they want us to be confused — Either I’m missing something and I’m about to make myself look very silly, or Medium’s stats page is weird. We’re all familiar with it. I’m talking about the page that looks like this, except for most of you the numbers are probably larger: