What succeeding looks like

I have some writing goals that I meet in bursts, only to fall back.

A few days ago I realized that I did not have a clear vision of the process for reaching my writing goals. (Or any other ones. But let’s talk about writing.) I knew what the end result looks like, but I have never visualized what it looks like to get there. So if I get there, it’s kind of an accident.

I had visualized success, but not succeeding.

Imagine trying to win at basketball by imagining the score: I’ve scored 120 points, my opponents have scored 110. Yay. I win!

That’s a success image. And it’s good to have it. But there’s nothing in that image to guide me toward my goal. Nothing to make me win consistently.

Would it help if I imagined making baskets? Sure. Better than just imagining the score, but not nearly enough.

Someone who succeeds at basketball needs to imagine plays and moves; needs to imagine obstacles and opponents; needs to know how to deal with them if they appear.

And of course, they need to practice.

But without a picture in your head of what succeeding looks like, practice will not get you there. There’s nothing to compare with your practice.

So I’m going to visualize what succeeding at writing looks like, starting—in this post—with the two most common cases. Case 1: I discover something interesting on the Internet—which I do all the time. Case 2: I have an interesting idea—which I do all the time. How do I get from there to a completed post? What does succeeding look like?

Let’s start with finding the Interesting Thing.

As soon as I decide it’s interesting enough to write about, I stop. I copy its URL. Then I open Google Docs document in which I write drafts. I call it the Drafting Doc. On my mobile devices, there’s a link to it from my home screen. On desktop devices, it’s likely already open in a tab. If not, I can open it from a bookmark. It’s my browser’s first bookmark.

I use Google’s Voice Dictation to help me. It works on mobile and on the desktop. I go to the end of the document and say or type the title of the post. I change the typeface to make it Heading 1. I paste the URL just below the title. If at all possible I continue and I don’t quit until the post is done.

If not, I document why I could not finish it right then. There’s a special section in my Drafting Doc for this.

If I can continue, I speak my draft content. It turns out that I can speak pretty quietly on a mobile device and Google will transcribe it really well. If I make an error on a mobile device, I can say it again and remove the error later in the process.

I can flip back and forth between my draft and the Interesting Thing.

If there’s a term that I want to link to some other content, I’ll create a placeholder: I put square brackets around the term and follow it with open and closed parenthesis, Markdown style. The result looks something like this. I avoid doing open-ended research.

Now I have a complete (shitty) first draft

Next step: turn my draft into a post. To do that I need to be on a device with a keyboard. First, I go through the draft, fixing anything that’s obviously stupid, replacing placeholders with actual links. I avoid doing more research. If I catch myself doing more than grabbing a link, I create a new section the Drafting Doc, make a note, copy a URL if appropriate, and start back finishing it what I started to finish.

Now I have an (unshitty) second draft.

I select and copy the draft. I choose where I’ll post it. At the top of my drafting document is a list of links to the URLs of the blogs and other media where I might want to put a draft. Stuff about programming goes to Awesome Tools. Stuff about blogging goes to Mike’s Metablog. There’s a set of hard-to-categorize posts that will go to 70 Years Old WTF. If I take more than a second to decide where to send a post it goes to Random S*&# I Learned Today, aka rsilt.

Now I use Grammarly to fix spelling and grammar errors.

I convert from Markdown to the final text.

Now I am on the final pass.

I read the document aloud or sotto voce. I fix anything that comes up. I do not go back and rewrite. If I find myself tempted to go back and rewrite, I stop. I stop dead. I do not go back and rewrite. I have a discussion with myself and try to convince myself that rewriting is a bad idea. I discuss it until I’m either convinced it’s a bad idea, or I’m convinced that it’s a good one. Usually, it’s a bad idea.

Now I have a publishable draft. Yay!

I publish. I used to get hung up here, trying to decide whether to publicize a post and if so, where to publicize it. This stops the flow. My simple answer for now: publish, don’t publicize. I will revisit that decision in August with my consultant, Mira.

Once I’ve published it, I get the URL of the published post. I switch back to the Google Doc where I did the drafting. The content the draft is still there, maybe still highlighted. I delete the draft. I enter a placeholder for the post like this: [show it](). I paste in the link in the parentheses. I switch to the post, copy its title, switch back to the document, and paste the title between the square brackets.

Done.

That’s the basic game plan. There are some special cases, but I will save them for another post

How about the Bright Idea? Close to the same. Start with the Drafting Doc. Create a new section. Do some research if it’s called for, and paste the URLs into the draft. The rest follows the Basic Game Plan.

Next up: read this, and publish it.

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