Reflections on Almost a Month of Writing
The Forrest Four-Cast: September 14, 2016
I started this writing project on Medium about a month ago (Wednesday, August 17). The initial goal was to compose four paragraphs every day. I’ve been pretty good at achieving this goal — I’ve only missed three days over the last four weeks. Some highlights and lowlights of this still-young experience are as follows.
The most popular offering was an analysis of the Austin startup scene. Moreover, that particular column was most ambitious in terms of offering strong opinions on how the city needs to improve as an entrepreneurial ecosystem. I need to get better with strong opinions loosely held (and all that). Also popular was my post about the upcoming South by SouthLawn event in Washington DC on Monday, October 3. Thanks, Obama.
One of the least popular posts was a straight-forward reminder about the September 9 SXSW registration deadline. The lack of clicks on this column re-affirms that potential readers want critical analysis, not just a re-hash of otherwise available information. Advetorial not welcome here.
But counting the numbers of page views creates a bit of a trap. Finding a wider audience has always been a slightly less important goal, because pushing myself to become a better / more interesting / more insightful writer is the primary purpose of this project. Yes, I have become much more comfortable with this self-imposed task over the last four weeks — and I am excited at the progress that I have made. Although there is no small irony that the better I’ve become at writing, the more I have regressed at my daily goals for exercise and meditation.
As always, life is a work in progress — and I’ll try to improve in balancing all three of these pursuits (writing, exercising, and meditating) over the next month. I hope that you will stay tuned as the journey continues!
