I was unsettled all evening after sending yesterday’s Base Teams vs Expedition Teams. I fell asleep ruminating about it.
I felt a stiffness in it that was unlike other posts that I’ve shared or was working on. Or maybe some strain. Or maybe a lack of spark. If you read it, you probably felt it, too.
At first I thought it may simply be the subject matter. But I actually love writing about teams, leadership, team dynamics, and so on. And I get excited talking to clients about team/org composition and I get excited when people get the difference between base and expedition teams and how it addresses some funk in their teaming.
What I couldn’t see all afternoon and evening was that the strain was coming from how the post got made, not from what it says. The post held up. The way I made it didn’t.
As I was falling asleep, I accepted the simpler answer: the problem was never in the post. By the time I started drafting it, I was tired, compressed, and frustrated.
Prior to drafting that one from scratch in the afternoon, which is already typically not my best writing time, I had worked on two other posts that I was much more excited by. Both of them ended up landing in my typical 1,000 +/- 200 word range.
And it was actually the fourth post I had worked on yesterday. I had edited another post earlier in the morning to add an attribution and that post would’ve been a good one to send yesterday, too. But it was also too long, landing in my typical word count range.
When I’m in a writing groove like I’ve been in for a while, it takes me 30-50 minutes to get to that typical word count. Since drafting doesn’t take me long, I can draft and ship in one focus block. Sometimes I can do it in 30-45 minutes.
Getting my natural drafts down to 300-500 words can take me hours and I usually feel like the posts are off. When I’ve done short writing sprints in the past, I always just assumed that my unsettledness was because I’m used to writing longer posts and that I’d get used to the short ones. And there was a part of me that’s always felt that if I was a better writer, I’d be able to land the shorter posts.
While the latter bit could be a lot of my own head trash, internet and editorial norms play a big part in it. In the mid-2010s, I wrote for fancy magazines that always pushed the 500-800 word limits, but really, the editors wanted shorter posts. Editors were much happier with a 500 word post than an 800 word post, so I’d take the extra hours to hone my work down to those limits, accepting that the slight dissonance I felt every time was just part of playing the game.
Eventually, I stopped playing because the effort and process were no longer worth it to me. I sometimes kick myself because had I just kept at it, I’d likely have a much larger platform now. But, who knows, there’s also a good chance that I would’ve sacrificed the joy of writing on the altar of success.
In fairness to the editors, it’s well known that shorter posts get read. Posts that are read get shared and commented on. Posts that are too long go into the “read later” bucket that no one actually gets to. The editors were doing their jobs and also trying to get my work read. (Thank you, long-suffering and under-appreciated editors!)
As I was thrashing, I posted on Substack Notes and Carrie Loranger responded:
The trade Carrie mentioned is the one that vexes me.
I think I was chewing on the post all night because I was thrashing about why I claimed that these TiP posts would be 300-500 words. Was it to make it easier on me or because it’s an easier ask of you? Why had I made myself the editor who would eventually make the writer bail?
The average reading rate is 238 words per minute. The difference in reading times between a 500 word post and a 1000 word post is about two minutes. The difference in writing time for me to get most of my ideas into that word count is many hours. And that’s assuming I actually don’t bail on editing or run out of energy.
As you now know from Learning to Live and Work with New Limits, I don’t have the energy I used to. A focus block or two of editing means I’m either going to burn myself out or I’m not likely to publish. Overworking drafts is already why I haven’t been publishing – I don’t need to replicate the pattern by another vector.
So, by the time I got to yesterday’s post, I was tired, compressed, and frustrated because I needed a couple of minutes. I didn’t need those minutes to work on the posts; I needed a couple extra minutes of your reading time.
As I drifted off, I thought about how many other places in my life I had ended up in dissonant or compromised places because I didn’t take an additional minute or two that someone would’ve gladly and graciously given to me. So many corners cut and apologies given, neither of which were needed.
My heart hurt a bit for me, but also for you. Because I know you’ve done the same and may be prone to do it in the future. (Caught you!)
Going forward, I’m going to take the additional minutes I need to make this fun, sustainable, and aligned for me. And if you need a few extra minutes from me to do the same for your efforts, please take them.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I am laughing at myself because it’s not like you come to me for short posts and it’s nowhere close to on-brand for me. When will I learn to stop trying to be something no one expects or is asking me to be? Apparently TiP can mean Thrashing in Public as much as Thinking in Public.
p.s. I reread the post with fresh eyes. It’s good enough and I’m glad I got it out on its own merits. That the process of getting it out catalyzed this post so early is a wonderful bonus.
