I have been publishing daily articles on this blog for almost four years now.
I’ve talked about it on occasion, but I have a normal way of working that some readers don’t realize.
I’m not the kind of person who sits down and types up a contemporaneous rant and pushes send RIGHT THAT INSTANT.
Instead, I often work on a significant time delay.
Normally, I will typically write my articles way up ahead. I’ll start drafts about subjects and then put them away. Sometimes I won’t pull them out for a very long time to finish them. So the post that you read today may have been started a few years ago.
And even once I finish them, I usually schedule them at least a few days into the future (I try to have a few articles ahead of me at all times so that if I get sick or busy, there’s still content coming out for y’all to read).
If I’m really up on things, or if I’m, say, planning to go on vacation, I will have weeks or occasionally even a month of articles all written up and scheduled.
Normally, this doesn’t make too much of a difference. I do very few seasonal pieces. I normally stay away from “trending” topics of the moment and instead write what are called “evergreen” pieces. Basically, the idea behind evergreen pieces is that no matter when you read them, they resonate. Have value.
So I write less about current, trendy topics — and more about long-standing questions I have about the world. Or things I’ve seen over and over again. Themes that crop up continually in my life — and in the lives of those around me.
One piece of positive feedback I’ve gotten over and over again from readers is that I have a knack for writing about the things that are affecting them.
I suspect it’s because I stick to problems that tend to recur over and over again. That I’ve seen a bunch. And wondered about a bunch. Both because of the evergreen thing, yeah, and for a practical reason: I’ve thought more about them than some novel trending thing that pops up out of nowhere.
I Write Knowing This That It Will Be Worse by the Time This Comes Out, But Not Knowing How Much Worse — or Exactly How #
Anyway, I’ve worked this way for nearly four years. And it’s been great until quite recently.
Because I wake up every morning seeing big changes. In the past, a day or two, even a week or a month, made very little difference on what the world outside of my home (where I write my pieces) looked like.
But as I type this piece (which I’m scheduling to come out a week after I write it), I do so not knowing how bad the current crisis will be. And what my own life within it will look like. I know it will be worse. But I do not know how much worse. And I do not know exactly how.
So I’m not sure how whatever I say now, whatever I say from the past, will hit you, readers.
Whatever the case, I’m going to try to keep doing my job for you. Please stay safe and take care of yourselves.