Things that work out and things that don’t

Hello there. I’m sure you don’t remember me. You’ll be staring at it, wondering who tf is this girl and what she’s doing in your feed. So let us present ourselves again.

You must be one of those hundred wonderful people who decided to follow me back in 2020 when I was still trying to conquer Medium, back when I still believed I could be producing a 4-minute text each week on top of a full-time job without breaking down. I was thinking of you, even if I left the place. You were a warm presence somewhere out there on the internet, reassuring me there is some value in making stuff up and writing it down. Thank you.

I am that Russian girl who lives in Italy, is sad a lot, and made a few decent attempts at writing fiction. You probably liked this twist on a classic fairytale, or maybe this cute thing exploring how single mothers are dealing with the inscrutable mysteries of the universe, or perhaps this how-to on reading a classic Russian masterpiece.

Do you know why I’m back here? I was just walking when a notification came, and I just realised, that after two years, Medium still sends me this:

It was excruciating back then — to stretch yourself to the thinnest foil emotionally, spend all weekends in frantic typing and/or tearing paper in a cinematic fashion, and then receive this one euro at the end of the month.

It’s kinda nice to be still receiving the same euro a month now when I couldn’t even remember login credentials to the platforms. It varies: sometimes it’s sixteen cents, sometimes it’s two. One month it was a whole five euros (I wonder what kind of party you were having here). Looks like I can say that I’m a paid author now and be technically correct. Moreover, I can say that I made myself a source of a passive income. I’m a financial genius. Worship me.

I’d love to hug you or buy you a beer for making me feel like this. But I’m a text on a screen and you’re a great unknown, so I figured I’ll just give you a quick rundown of my life two years after, and wish each other a chill evening. I figured that Medium is not for diaries, but as a writer-who-gets-exactly-one-euro-whatever-she-does-or-doesn’t-do, I’m blessed with the power to do whatever I want.

Writing

I have stopped with the articles because the 4-minute mark necessary to make sense on the platform was too much for me. Then I sent a couple of stories to writing competitions…