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Everyone from Confucious to Mark Twain has dubbed living in pursuit of what you love as the secret to never having to work at all. As a writer, I’m privileged to be doing just that. But in the same way we’ve seen how working-from-home can morph into living-at-work if you’re not careful, chasing a profession that’s tethered to your passion can lead you straight into a corner. Because if the thing you love is also what quite literally props the roof up over your head, it’s bound to change under all that weight. More simply put (and these are not my words, but I like them a lot), when your job is your passion, the work never stops.
But if I remove the deadlines, the word counts, the SEO terms, the editorial filters, and perhaps most importantly, the paycheck, I’m left with the question: What would I be writing if my livelihood didn’t depend on it?
The answer lies in the unpolished opinions unfolding across my DMs (yes, I went there). Some of my best thinking happens in virtual conversation with two fellow freelance writers where my varied musings don’t just come to life, they’re contemplated, challenged, re-imagined, and improved. Mary Frances hails from New York, covering everything from socialism to sex toys. Alice is a Paris-based Brit known for her sharp-as-hell editing and wit. From my own London perch, I pick ceaselessly at their brilliant brains via Instagram in search of comfort, info, humor, and diverse perspectives. Now, in the throes of this global health crisis and its crippling uncertainty, during which a belated racial reckoning has forced everyone, everywhere to rethink how we move forward from here (not to mention, a historic presidential election that gets more insane by the day, threatening the safety of our bodies, our planet, and our democracy), our private chat has been a place for me to reflect and grow. When I asked Mary Frances and Alice about opening it up to a wider audience, they agreed.
So that’s how we’ve found ourselves here, in your inbox, welcoming you to our Medium Rare newsletter and thanking you so very much for your curiosity. Each month, we’ll be prompting one other with topical questions to be tackled from our different viewpoints, backgrounds, and geographic locations. We’ll also be reaching out to those we follow and admire — whose voices we look forward to listening to more, including, and amplifying throughout the process — and recommending the cool stuff that’s got our attention RN.
We invite you, the reader, to reach out with anything you want to add, potential new topics of discussion, and so on. Our DMs are always open. AR
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