Introducing The Freedom Life

You might have noticed that I already have a ‘proper’ blog.  (If you haven’t, it’s housed under the ‘Blog’ tab on my website).  I’m starting a separate one because I write about lots of different things, which don’t behave when they’re all smooshed together.  My website is supposed to promote my professional writing and writing mentoring services, so certain subjects don’t feel right in that context (see: my Medium post about Brooklyn Beckham).

I thought about starting a new Medium or Substack newsletter, but then I realised something: I don’t like the way I write on those platforms.  Just like my ‘proper’ blog posts feel a bit ‘how to’ (because they sort-of have to be), my Medium and Substack posts feel a bit ranty and humourless.  Again, they sort-of have to be; at least if you want people to click and comment on them, and then to follow you.  There are fancy stats for comments and clicks and follows, but I hate stats, which is another reason why I don’t want to write on Medium or Substack anymore.  Stats make you do things you’d rather not, just so the stats (read: you) can look good.

When I worked in a call centre aged 19, I skewed my phone’s recording stats so I would win ‘Customer Service Agent of the Month’, every month*.  It was stupidly easy to do – so very stupidly easy that I wondered why no-one else was doing it.  Now, we all try to “get more steps in”, or listen to songs on Spotify that we’d like to see displayed in our Wrapped at the end of the year.  The exercise we do and the music we listen to seem to define us in some strange way, and no-one wants to see themselves as a lazy slob who listens to Phil Collins.  But if that’s who you are, that’s who you are, and I’d like there to be at least one place where I can write who I am.

So, The Freedom Life is about ideas, observations, and the personal things I’ll write because I want them out of my head, or simply just because.  No restrictions, no SEO, no ‘Heading 3s’ (which is the font I use to break up text sections in my ‘proper’ blog posts), and no advertising.  Just my own weird words, in various orders, written here.

*I can’t remember what the prize was for ‘Customer Service Agent of the Month’ back then, but it wouldn’t have been remotely amazing.  It was all about the attention.  The glamour.  The recognition.

It was a long time ago.