I am learning this too.

Who I am writing for

People who are holding a lot. The renewal nobody else saw. The appointment that has to be moved. The form, the fees, the birthday, the reply. If you are the one in your home who remembers things, this is for you.

I write with African women in mind, and men and boys are every bit as welcome: we need them, and they need support too. You do not need to be technical. I am not. I have never written a line of code and nothing here will ask you to.

What I will not do here

• Nothing about health. No symptoms, no dosages, no advice. Appointments are diary entries and that is as far as it goes.
• No promises about hours saved. I do not know your life, and anyone quoting you a number is guessing.
• Nothing that treats your privacy as a detail. Every piece starts from what you are not handing over.
• No pretending I am further along than I am. When I get something wrong I will come back and say so on the page rather than quietly fixing it.

Why it is called Soft Echoes

It started as the place I kept my writing, and my book Speak to the Wind came out of it. The name stayed because the thing underneath has not really changed: something said quietly, coming back to you later, when you need it.

Getting it wrong in public

I would rather write this while I am still learning than wait until I sound like an expert, because the gap between not knowing and knowing is the useful part and almost nobody writes it down.

So if something here is wrong, out of date, or did not work when you tried it, I would genuinely like to know.