Borrowed Courage

Interest Accrued — A Writing Challenge

Why the most important transactions in writing never appear on a statement

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Some debts never appear on a statement.

Medium makes the visible numbers easy to count: claps, views, reads, earnings. But another ledger runs quietly in the background, recording the time, space, and belief editors give to writers they barely know.

Take E³.

I was new-ish to Medium when I found E³, the publication run by Malky McEwan. I loved its vibe and the stories it published. When I had a particular story to tell, E³ felt like the right home for it. So I took my time. I read every rule, wrote the piece, edited it, walked away, sat with it, then edited it again.

When Malky accepted the piece, the ledger changed.

There were no notes. No errors. Nothing to revise. He featured it and even nominated it for a Medium Boost. The Boost didn’t land, but that didn’t matter. The transaction that mattered had already occurred in secret.

The debt was born in the quiet reassurance of that acceptance.

It wasn’t just space on a page; it was the sudden, terrifying gift of validation. An editor looked at my raw thoughts and signaled: You have something worth saying, and you have told it well. For a new writer, that kind of validation is a high-interest loan. You spend it immediately on the courage to keep typing.

Then there is Mario López-Goicoechea, Editor-in-Chief of Writers’ Blokke and co-editor of various other pubs. At One Table, One World, he has edited, published, and featured my stories. One of them used food as a portal to collapse decades, continents, and even death. Mario left a comment: “Your essay is the reason some of us become editors.” He may not remember writing it, but I still carry the confidence and warmth of those words.

When I was new here, Doctor Funny, Another Fucking Publication, Quirky Rants, and Pen With Paper gave my early stories somewhere to land. Their challenges kept pulling new ones out of me, while Fiction Shorts gave me discipline and focus.

Sriram, who runs Pen With Paper and several other publications, invited me to become an editor last year. My health prevented me from accepting, but his understanding — and the invitation he left open — meant more than he probably realized.

Anu at English Vinglish and Vidya at Namaste Now often make a small change here or there that quietly improves the piece.

Carolyn at Paper Poetry may make a poet of me yet. Her edits are quiet, precise, and always leave the piece stronger.

Adrienne edits and publishes a full queue at the Challenged while juggling everything life throws at her. She has built a vibrant community of readers and writers, where her unmistakable voice and generous encouragement make newcomers feel they belong.

Every story Jason has featured at In A Taste for Life began with one of his weekly prompts, and each feature lifts my confidence a little.

In May, Brenda set a thirty-day challenge.I wrote a story every day — and she kept showing up with quiet encouragement, whether or not the story was hers to edit or publish.

Dave from It’s All Good will edit my posts even when they are not for his publication. The eagle eyes of an editor see everything.

Shanti appreciates not just mine, but everyone’s posts so enthusiastically that Medium occasionally puts her behind the bars of comment jail for excessive encouragement.

Dennett at Weeds and Wildflowers has a knack for coaxing a few flowers from the garden of my imagination.

Susan at Simple Gardening gives me room to flex my gardening muscles.

Rodrigo at Full Frame welcomes even those of us who are not photographers and shows us how to see life through a different lens.

Meta’s zany prompts, Zeest’s invitations to create worlds together, and Vipul’s planet of a publication have all sent me in new directions.

When Barb asked me to edit at The Daily Cuppa, it gave me another level of confidence entirely. Becoming an editor at Frequency Change did the same — and brought me two new friends in Mary and Poet In The Arctic.

Then there is Manmeet, who has a knack for leading me down paths I might never have taken on my own. A good editor knows how to help writers reveal themselves.

Malky has written about the importance of voice: “Success in writing is finding your voice. Your voice is the sum of you.”

Well, that makes sense. Everyone else is already taken. When I was new here, though, I sometimes read writers I admired on this platform and wondered whether I should sound more like them.

But then I remember the ledger. I remember that my story was accepted because it sounded like me, not like a carbon copy of someone else. To write in someone else’s voice would be a default on the confidence invested in me.

Editors give up their time to read us, sharpen our work, and build spaces for us to speak. They probably don’t think twice about a clean approval, a thoughtful edit, or a featured slot; it is simply part of their day. When I was new here, every nod stayed with me. So did the encouragement that came later.

That is a debt I still carry, and the only way I know to pay the interest is to keep showing up in my own voice — and, when I edit, to help another writer keep showing up in theirs.

Written in response to Interest Accrued — A Writing Challenge.

Thank you, Manmeet, for the prompt, and thank you to Write Your World and its editors, Manmeet Singh Bhatia and 🌸Preeti Pathak🌸, for creating the space for this story.

[embed]Interest Accrued—A Writing Challenge Not all debts show up on a bank statement.medium.com