Guess whose back...
The King is dead, long live the king!
There are no kings in this newsletter and no one has died… in a sense.
I’ve been away from writing the newsletter. Not necessarily in the way you might think but I’ve obviously not published in many months. However, I’ve written quite a bit over that time. The amount of drafts, partial articles, and long forms is maddening.
Yet, I’ve been unable to cross the goal line. No drive to bring any to fruition. Frustrating for the audience and frustrating for the writer.
Sure, I could list a bunch of mostly valid excuses; busy with work, still fairly new baby, new house, kids are in a new school…. blah blah blah. These reasons aren’t untrue, all of this happened in the past 11 months. But if I accepted those or tried to slide them by you I would be doing us all a disservice.
The real truth is more saga… Bill & Ted and their bogus journey. See, I was putting out newsletters and it felt great. I received positive feedback on several topics.
The Am I or Are The Others Crazy formula was 5-7 different topics, short form with one longer deep dive piece. Each post though felt like a maintenance nightmare. I had to maintain many topic areas. I would generate some great content and then slog through 4 other topics where there the content was… meh.
I was settling for meh because I felt that I needed to maintain the structure. And maintaining the structure gobbled up time.
Worse yet, as I fell behind in generating the smaller pieces, larger pieces piled up and became obsolete. Covid, Ukraine, so many stories felt like their time had passed. Frustration set in. I was generating some good content and failing to get it out. Failure to launched turned into doubting the worth of even writing.
Imposter syndrome set in. All of the sudden, I’m at battle of the bands and I didn’t know how to play any instrument. Needless to write, I definitely felt stuck.
You could say I had the content yips.
Good news is I am back to feeling more comfortable with writing. At some point in the future, I’ll chronicle the approaches I took to get out of my head and get back into the game. Thankfully I took copious notes along the way.
For now, spring the season heralds a new spring for the newsletter. New content, new formats, and even… a new title. Am I or Are The Others Crazy is being retired. The title is long and makes for long typing to get here. I’m in the final stages of getting set up on my own platform and site.
So, be on the lockout for The Penumbral. I promise there is a method to this madness.
I look forward to engaging in all new discussion topics, getting back into a rhythm and evolving my written voice. Thanks for hanging in there.
The last 10 months have been a blur! Lots of exciting topics that I’ve missed out on but even more that I have a unique take on. Let’s get into it.
If you think someone would enjoy this newsletter, please pass it on.
Something even more fun, synergy! I’m not sure if I am allowed to sponsor myself, but I plan on doing so. One of the fun side projects of the last 10 months… Fabled Fudge!
As many of you know, I have a pretty stellar family recipe for fudge that just can’t be beat. In 2021, between my mom, my brother and I we shipped almost 200 pounds of fudge. Well, now you can get it anytime starting in May. Woot woot!
Check out Fabled Fudge (www.fabledfudge.com). Sign up to get more info on the launch coming in May!