Turkish Delight: Chapter 3

Turkish breakfast turned out to be a buffet, full of yummy things. Fruit, pickled vegetables, cold meats, yogurt, eggs, muesli. I was kind of hoping for a few slices of turkey, but what seemed obvious to me didn’t seem to have occurred to those actually living here.

And there was coffee. Not espresso-made-by-a-hunky-barista-in-a-Melbourne-laneway-with-latte-art coffee but I can be remarkably tolerant about my caffeine delivery system when it’s the first of the day.

Anton came in, made himself a cup of tea, and sat at the head of the table dunking a croissant, smiling out at the hungry tourists charging themselves…

Turkish Delight: Chapter 2

It was dark when I closed my eyes.

Dawn is always the best time for meditation. As night turns to day and back again twelve hours later, the natural sattva of the environment peaks and the atmosphere tends toward stillness and grace.

And here was this special place, the sound of waves stirring the shingle of the cove, a gentle wind whispering in the trees, and the only manmade noise the throbbing of a ferryboat leaving the small port of Kabatepe for the island of Gökçeada, which the Anzac soldiers had known as Imbros.

Fifteen minutes earlier I had left…

I have the honour of being an editor in the ILLUMINATION family of publications, and recently I’ve been super excited to be part of the ILLUMINATION Book Chapters team.

I read a lot of stories, and the ones I’m reading on IBC are extra good. Mostly because they come from published authors, and are often entire published books presented chapter by chapter.

Inspiration

There is a battalion of super robot clones loose on the Internet, and their name is Dr Mehmet Yildiz. No one person could possibly have so much energy without a nuclear reactor inside and a litre of coffee to kick off the day, each and every day.

Oh, and no sleeping!

Dr Mehmet has issued a challenge, seeking to gain information on what motivates Medium writers:

1 — As a writer, my major pain points and struggles are…

• Finding time to write in the everyday rush of work and social duties. My best times are early morning when I have a little time free of distraction.
• Balancing my effort between writing and…

Before there was social media there were blogs. I mean, there still are, perhaps more than ever, but let’s face it, who spends their time navigating the blogosphere nowadays?

Back in the glory days of LiveJournal I blogged like a madwoman and so did all my friends. It was how we shared our lives. Problems with the boyfriend, funny stories about the rels, good vibes requested for the job interview, I’m repainting the windows, the dog just sicked up on my pizza…

It was all happening on the blogs and boards.

Enter the blogroll

A blogroll was a list — a rollcall —…

Turkish Delight: Chapter 1

Almost as soon as the GPS told me to turn off the motorway I knew it was a mistake. The new road was narrow, hardly wide enough for two cars to pass, curving up, down, and around the slopes of the golden-brown hills, and it was nothing like the instructions I’d been sent. “Stay on the E84 past Kesan, and take the D550 to Gelibolu.”

But I was tired of motorways and autobahns and all those bloody tollbooths in France, it had been a long day already after rising before dawn for Heathrow, and if the GPS said I could…

A few whacks with my ice-axe and I’m onto the ridge. The landscape opens out: mountains, glaciers, valleys down to the dusty plains of India on the far horizon.

Above…

You are here on ILLUMINATION, reading and (maybe) writing.

Somebody wants to know why, and I must admit I’m kind of keen to know the answer too.

Q stands for Quora — and Questions

Naturally, I have an interest in ILLUMINATION, so I was intrigued to see somebody ask a question on the Quora website.

Why do you write for ILLUMINATION publication on Medium?

So far five people have answered the question, and you may see the reasons they give here.

What I’d love to see

I’d be over the moon to see people respond there, but even further delighted to see our writers talk about it here.

Here’s my response:

I…