A Sense of Doubt blog post #3612 - Crash Dive: Go Deep, Run Silent, Get it Done
So if you have read my blog before, even a little, you know that I glean a great deal of content from one of my top five favorite authors in all genres: Warren Ellis.
Warren writes a chatty, warm, thought-provoking newsletter called Orbital Operations, you can subscribe here:
Letters about the creative life by Warren Ellis, a writer from England. Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here. |
|
|
|
I can call him Warren because that's how he signed an email when we chatted a bit. Just because some people accuse me of being too familiar with people I don't know. I wouldn't say I know Warren privately, despite a couple of emails in 20 years, but I know his public persona from his newsletter, which comes out weekly on Sundays, and sometimes he shuts it down for a while.
It's been shut down for about a month.
I expect to hear from Warren soon.
His description hear of a run silent/run deep scenario resonated with me. Often to get a lot of work done, I have to shut out all distractions, all other tasks, and then bear down and barrel through until I am done.
Like Warren's issues with his weekly newsletter pulling him out of his work zone as a story teller, my blog similarly gets in the way of my productivity in other arenas. Unlike Warren, I have never shut down the blog since I started the daily regimen back up in 2015, after a year off since the the conclusion of the t-shirts blog daily schedule in March of 2014. As of July 6th this year (2025), I will have maintained a daily posting regimen for TEN YEARS straight, and as of now, I do not see myself stopping any time soon.
That said, I do fall behind. I am behind right now as I type these words for this blog entry, dated Tuesday, January 7th, and it's Thursday January 9th right now. My days behind record is 13 days, which was back in 2022.
This days behind thing and other blog stuff is described here:
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
I have put systems into place to prevent myself from falling 13 days behind ever again (I hope).
I have "Low Power Mode" into which I shift the blog when it needs to run on auto-pilot, sharing reprints (there's currently 3611 posts available to reprint), a simple share (as opposed to the usual share of someone else's writing when, like here, I add commentary), and my THAT ONE THING feature, which is usually some image and then just a few remarks about it.
Sometimes I also put the blog in vacation mode, which means I pre-publish a week or two of posts and don't always push them to social media as they publish. But they are still published and the daily regimen is preserved and continued.
One thing I have learned that puts me behind is scheduling an entry that's going to take a fair amount of work, thinking I will have time to do that work, and then I keep NOT finding the time. That's why I am behind right now as tomorrow (yesterday in reality) by the date of this entry is David Bowie's birthday, and I want to share a lot of Twitter posts about that, wishing him what would have been a happy 78th birthday. But it's one day. I will have that posted soon.
I have learned to derail -- as in remove from the schedule -- posts that are not getting done and may not get done, which is why I have two dozen or more posts that keep being pushed back from when they are scheduled, some have been in the works for years, which in many cases, makes them much less relevant.
This delay method is much the same as how I compose my master to do list in categories: immediate must get done or daily tasks, short term goals, long-ish goals, and large projects for "some day."
Like how I decided to sit down and do this now. I prioritized things that I can do later and moved this task into the NOW position. I want to catch up on my blog before a meeting in about 45 minutes.
Anyway, read Warren's smart post and his shared links via Michael Moorcock (whom he calls Mike) for GETTING SHIT DONE.
Thanks for tuning in.
|
Emergency PowerOrbital Operations for 16 June 2024 |
|
|
OPERATIONS |
CRASH DIVE |
I have written scripts, outlines, development documents, notes, plans and schemes, and reconstructed the patio area for my exercise. I’m not even going to list everything that’s going on in sekrit PROJECT CODENAME form. |
I need to finish off what is probably a couple hundred pages of stuff in the next three weeks. Almost all of it is expanding detailed notes into script or rewriting extant material, but that’s obviously still a lot. |
I love writing these letters, but, as I’m sure I’ve said, sometimes I have to crash everything off. Doing them pulls me out of the zone of pure storytelling life, and sometimes that’s okay, but I don’t have the spare time to take breaks for a few weeks. Just executed another contract, and I have a couple of hard deadlines for the end of the month, and I’m now in active development on a crazy thing I’m doing with a new friend, and… well, more stuff. |
I’m in my happy place, but I can’t be distracted now or I’ll blow deadlines and let people down. |
The lesson for creators here is maybe that it’s okay to down-periscope, crash-dive and make your mileage underwater. There is a sense that one has to be always visible on social media or some other internet instance, especially in times when going dark for a week means a lot of people might instantly forget about you. It’s a fast and shallow world. This is your reminder that it’s doing the work that matters, not doing the dance. |
I have a feeling that it was Mike Moorcock who once commented that the person in the bar who tells everyone that they’re a writer probably isn’t a writer, because a writer would be somewhere writing. And Mike used to write a book a week, so he’s allowed to make the observation. |
(He once said to me, “I used to have a great time during the good times,” and famously knocked out at least one of his fantasy novels to pay his Harrods food and sundries bill.) |
Mike’s rules for writers. |
Mike on how to write a novel in three days. |
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2501.07 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3476 days ago & DAD = 132 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
No comments:
Post a Comment