Some Thoughts About Writing

I’ve been reading Patrick Rhone’s new book Some Thoughts About Writing. It is the second in he’s Minimal Guide series. I have listen to Patrick on his podcast Enough for a long time. The podcast has come to an end, but is archived by a fan here. He writes mainly about Simplicity, Minimalism, and Apple related topics, and often infuses his speech and writing with subtle hints of Buddhism. If you are an Apple nerd, he also has a great site called Minimal Mac.

I love the idea of simplicity but for various reasons, have a very difficult time implementing it in my life. Patrick has re-framed the subject of Minimalism in the idea of enough. How much is enough? Is this enough? Is this more than enough?

I love his writing style, his speaking style, and general voice. I bought his first Minimal guide titled So, You Want To Be A Mac consultant because he was offering it at a reasonable price and I wanted a way to support his writing. I have no desire to be a Mac consultant. I don�t even own a Mac. I read it anyways, and as usual, I learned something. But more than learning, I enjoyed reading it.

A few weeks ago, Patrick posted a compilation of a few blog posts about writing, and just as his Mac consulting book started, an new book began to take shape. When he announced that the first version of Some Thoughts About Writing was available, I bought it immediately. I then sat and read the whole thing in one sitting. Then, the next day he published the next update, and I read it again. This morning, the third version has been posted and I read that too! Patrick calls this “a living book. ” he makes the first version available immediately, and continues revise and expand kit. So far it’s excellent.

Why have I read this book all the way through with each update? I can’t really explain it. Again, I love reading anything Patrick writes, but there is something more.

I keep this blog for several reasons. I have had big ideas for it. I get busy and ignore it, then I feel horrible for not doing anything with it. I get big and little ideas, and I keep these ideas in Simplenote, but never bother to flesh them out. I would like to think I share great ideas and thoughts, but I never actually share them. I have an idea for a ministry and business idea. This will require creating and curating a lot of content, but I never create the content. Well, I do, but it’s in my head and Simplenote archive, not in actual text that can be shared.

The overriding theme in Some Thoughts on Writing is this:

• Show up.
• Be yourself.
• Write.
• Put it out there for people to read.

He says it a lot. “Plant your but in a chair and write.”

One Thousand Words a Day

So, I am going to plant my but in a chair, in front of my desk, or in front of the dining room table, or put my thumbs on my phone or tablet on the living room couch, or in the car while waiting for my wife. I am going to write.

I am aiming at one thousand words a day, five days per week. That’s two hundred sixty thousand words in a year. I hope to average about four blog posts a week, but this goal is not about how much I publish, it is about getting good at the art of writing.

Some of it will totally suck. Some of it will be unreadable. Occasionally it will be good, and maybe one day, something might come out of me that will be amazing.

I won’t publish everything. I probably won’t publish most of it. Some of it may only get published on Facebook or Google+, but some (if not most) of it get published here on this website.

I am setting a goal of writing this much so that I will have something to publish publicly, and so that my writing will become more natural and I won’t have to force it. I want to build a habit.

What will I write about?

Simply, whatever I decide to write about. I have always tried to come up with a topic or two to focus on, but then never ended up sticking with it. It is a lot of work to produce content regularly about only one niche topic. It requires a lot of knowledge and research, a lot of focus, and a lot of passion for that niche.

I have a passion for a couple of topics, but I don’t know how that will take shape. We shall see. The goal here is to simply get one thousand words out. I will sort and edit, and publish as warranted.

This post is eight hundred fifty-eight words, in case you’re interested. So now, I have to go write something else, or find an in progress post to add a couple hundred words to.