I’m starting a new daily-ish section called Thinking in Public (hereafter, TiP).
Here’s the summary:
Shorter, daily-ish posts where I think out loud about whatever I’m chewing on. More unfiltered and unpolished, likely including more shop talk and personal wonderings alongside core themes.
I could list a lot of audience-facing and strategic reasons why I’m doing this, but they all cut against doing it equally well. The main reason I want to do it is because I’m creatively constipated after a few years of thrashing, making publishing harder than it needs to be, and behind-the-scenes stuff that I’ll likely talk about in pieces going forward.
If you’ve been on one of our community events, you’ve probably heard me say “Your cage; your key.” I’m eating my own cooking here.
As the summary suggests, TiP posts will span more than what I’ve made “core” areas. They’ll also be more fragments and snippets I pick up throughout the days.
Some writers are using social media, including Substack Notes, for similar kinds of efforts. That feels backwards to me, as you’ve already signed up and, like me, the last thing you’re probably wanting is Yet Another Social Media place to be. TiP posts will be hitting your Inbox.
By short, I mean they may be 300-500 words. TiP is doing some work for me that Twitter used to do; I hope it does the same “quick idea discovery” work that social media does for some.
Because Substack makes it awkward to add people to sections, I accidentally added everyone to the new section. I decided to accept the “mistake” as probably closer to what makes sense. If you’d rather not get short posts, it’s easy enough to unsubscribe from this section, Thinking in Public, and get whatever else you were already getting.
As exciting as it is to kick the shackles off, I’m going to give this a six-month evaluation period. I know I’ll be excited the first few weeks. I also know that I’ll feel the displacement consequences four to six weeks from now. Six months is a long enough new project cocoon.
My ask: hit the “love” button or comment if you’re liking the new content. It’ll be fuel for when my excitement wanes and will amplify my own excitement and curiosity.
And if you don’t want to get TiP content, please unsubscribe from the section. I won’t be looking much and will be focusing on who this is for – me and people who dig it. You won’t hurt my feelings and I’d rather not increase the noise in your Inbox.
You can tell it’s a TiP post because you’ll see “Charlie Gilkey (TiP)” as the sender. And unsubscribing is as easy as hitting unsubscribe in the footer of your email, then turning the toggle off for Thinking in Public. See the pic below.
That’s it for today. See you tomorrow with whatever I’m thinking about enough to share.
Post-publish edit: I’m going to create a muse board with folks who reply or email me, which will help me center who I’m writing to. Kate Tyson and Koren Motekaitis are already added, as are others who’ve emailed me.
