Writing About Writing About Writing….
Pick Of The Week –10th June 2025
This series is a curated cornucopia featuring some of the best of Medium and Substack, and the wider world, rumoured to exist outside of these platforms. Please note that in view of the impact of AI on the writing community, Eco has a stringent “No AI-content” policy, and will seek to actively avoid any articles we consider to be partly or fully generated by AI, and not feature authors believed to be using it in this way again. We are fully supportive of diversity, equity and inclusion. In support of our aims and objectives, 10% of earnings from this series will be donated to Greenpeace.
Sponsors – a link to donors and paying Substack subscribers will appear here:
Ecosia; The Environmental Transport Association; Mary Grindeland
Pick of Medium – (advisory allergy note – may contain poetry)
Carol F takes aim at snake oil salespeople offering dubious writing advice:
Eleni Stephanides speaks out:
Desiree Peralta highlights the companies that have shown their true colours:
https://medium.com/publishous/brands-never-really-cared-about-pride-month-f65e5df0f4a4
Sam Westreich explains how AI is making it up to cover gaps in training:
Mohab A Karim favours café society to get work done:
@woodspathfinder targets “perseverance porn”:
Murphy’s Law splashes out:
https://medium.com/@pwbmurphy/i-bought-a-7-000-stone-house-in-southern-europe-374f9ac0c15a
Paul van Gool highlights a speech on internationalism that struck a chord:
Adrienne Beaumont gets a shock:
https://medium.com/the-challenged/how-the-other-half-live-60b3b5c8c6d5
Embrace joy urges Trista Signe Ainsworth:
https://medium.com/optimism-and-light/embracing-connection-7041420833c9
Christina Piccoli quits but aims to try again, just differently:
https://medium.com/health-kick/i-hate-to-be-a-quitter-already-but-0110993d9cdb
Nofisat Damilola recommends a lie-in:
https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/before-you-set-that-4-45-alarm-read-this-0cdd89f8bc67
Unknown unknowns can be good suggests Bella Smith:
Madison Clarke finds that self-help books can just spread misery:
https://medium.com/black-bear-recovery/why-self-help-books-made-me-miserable-396cdbd3ca82
Zahier Adams is stuck for inspiration:
https://medium.com/the-humor-pub/the-post-that-never-was-f302a3c3520d
Here Zahier has a message for writers who feel invisible:
https://medium.com/readers-club/to-every-writer-who-feels-invisible-ca866529ecff
Jasmine Sky gets a marketing lesson from the Czechs:
https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/good-bye-czech-republic-3b15b14eaf67
Ral Joseph is swimming in the river of life:
https://medium.com/planet-ral/drowning-in-family-learning-to-swim-b463784951b2
Geerthika serves a taste of Sri Lankan cuisine:
https://medium.com/@geerthi17/let-me-serve-you-a-taste-of-sri-lanka-29d3495c68f0
Susie Kearley experiences Scottish weather:
https://medium.com/globetrotters/gales-floods-on-the-isle-of-skye-689470548fc8
Maria Rattray reflects on moving home:
https://medium.com/hope-healing-and-humour/lessons-in-moving-house-8c5d9f9d5e74
Michael Burg ventures some VERSE:
https://medium.com/the-pub/ive-not-written-a-poem-in-a-while-3f4da6d1fe37
Tip of the week – perseverance
Push through the pain urges Ripton Green:
https://medium.com/@ripton/showing-up-when-you-dont-feel-like-it-b8d6d78cd5ec
The wider world:
A writer is rewarded:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0k5jldgd1o
Companies that have cravenly cut DEI initiatives may suffer a consumer backlash:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/05/trump-uk-europe-cutting-dei-diversity-equality
AI is increasing carbon emissions:
Pick of Substack:
Yana Bostongirl reviews her progress in a tale of two platforms:
https://yanabostongirl.substack.com/p/my-brutally-honest-review-of-medium/comments
How to deal with the dreaded Substack stagnation:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-162390686
Amanda Guinzburg @guinz found AI lying and then apologising for it! :
https://substack.com/home/post/p-164719684
Wes Pearce (sadly no relation) explains his growth strategy:
You couldn’t make it up. One paper did, as Susan Fourane explains, highlighting the risk of relying on AI:
Entrepreneur’s Corner
Bin suggests that using AI is not a smart move:
Life Hack of the Week – keep calm
Keep calm and carry on, suggests Mehakdeep Kaur
https://medium.com/no-time/are-you-so-sure-that-the-worst-will-happen-201a600572bb
Quote of the Week:
“I was not born for these times – it’s all too sharp, too loud, too fast for me. I was made for an age of dirt roads, soft light, quiet skies, and where our kindness has the patience of trees.”
John Roedel
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending” C.S. Lewis
“If you wish to be a writer, write.” – Epictetus
"It’s a little embarrassing that after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other." Aldous Huxley
Thought for the week:
“The truth does not always bring peace. Sometimes, it brings ruins.”
— Nikita Gill (with thanks to Bella Smith)
Joke of the Week:
(Health warning – swallow coffee before reading)
Super-excited about the amateur autopsy club I just joined. Tuesday is open Mike night!
My biology teacher was dating my physics teacher, but they broke up – there was no chemistry.
Do you Linda, take David the optician, to be your lawful wedded husband, for better or worse, better……or worse, better….. or worse?
I was really struggling with my dance moves, now I can’t stop doing pirouettes. I’ve really turned my life around.
I woke up from a deep sleep in a panic thinking I was late for work. Thankfully, I was at work.
Did you know?
Franz Kafka, the brilliant and enigmatic writer behind The Metamorphosis and The Trial, was intensely private and deeply insecure about his writing. Before his death in 1924, he instructed his close friend and literary executor, Max Brod, to burn all of his unpublished manuscripts. But Brod didn’t listen. Instead, he edited and published Kafka’s works, believing the world needed to read them—and he was right. Nearly all of Kafka’s major works, including The Castle and Amerika, were only published posthumously because Brod went against his wishes.
Word of the Week:
petrichor – this rather lovely word is the pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.
Clip of the Week
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/czel2j71n49o
As always, thank you for reading, and enjoy your day.
Editor’s comment: It is noted that the authors featured above have not consented in advance to their inclusion - I have assumed that authors appreciate a mention and sharing of your work – but if you do not wish to be featured please let me know and apologies.
Okay, this one was META.