My Style of Panic Writing
This week marks the 199th week in a row that I’ve written a post here. By my count, that’s 495,520 words. ~496K counting today. I’ve always said my only goal in starting was consistency. It doesn’t matter how good the writing is, I just have to post something every week. And that has worked. While not all bangers, I think that consistency has coaxed out of me some writing that I’m very proud.
My particular style of panic writing has served me relatively well. Most often, I have a busy week of work, kids, life, and then, all at once, it’s Saturday morning at 5 or 6 AM and I haven’t written anything. My kids will be up in 2-3 hours; that’s my window. I write as best I can around something I may or may not have been formulating in my mind and in my notes. And see what sticks. Week after week.
However, with that consistency comes a few varieties of inefficiency. Where my post is out of necessity more than preparation. Those varieties include:
Touching Grass
Every now and then I’ll find myself in a particularly ponderous mood and I’ll feel the draw to live life rather than write it. So I post some brief missive about how I’m feeling and I move on.
- Be Still
- Touch Some Grass
- Back To The Grass
- Taking a Breath
- Guide Your Gaze
- Pondering The Grass
- Of Things That Matter Most
Life Gets In The Way
Other times, it’s not that I’m taking time to breathe, but that I have no time to breathe. Either because of travel or sickness or work, things pile up and I’m left without adequate time.
In Anticipation
Then, there are a few special occasions. Unlike the others, these come not because I have too little to say, by choice or by necessity, but because I have too much to say. Those usually precede something very exciting for me.
This happened when I was trying to write The Value Chain of Capital.
It happened again when I was writing Surviving The Death of Venture Capital.
It happened when I was trying to write The Hardening of The Great Softening.
Most recently, it happened when I was trying to write Cultivating Cults.
While some of those end-result pieces are more popular than others, they are each ones that I’m particularly proud of. But to get to those, sometimes it required me to spend my entire morning panic writing in one direction, only to quickly turn around and write a piece like this. Reflecting on my inability to reflect.
The danger in this post in particular is that, while I’ve bitten off more I can chew this week with a particular post, I’m not as convinced as I usually am that I’ll be able to finish it next week. I’ve got a very busy week or travel and life ahead as well, so whether this post will finally see the light of day on November 1st? Or the week after? Who’s to say.
But the purpose of writing is to communicate through words an emotional sense from writer to reader. So with every fiber of capability I have, I wish only to communicate to you the excitement I feel about the post that is forming, but is not yet formed.
Until then!