Spread text
It is time once again to write a brief update on the state of text. If you are here for regular text and not metatext, you may ignore it. This doesn’t count towards the regular free-premium-free-premium rotation, and I publish them off-schedule, inasmuch as text has a schedule.
The actual text
The long goal with text is to write a lot, see what resonates with people, and then to write more of what resonates with people. In doing so, we’ll both grow together, because I will change along with the practice.
In order for that to happen, people have to tell me what resonates with them. People have been doing that! And now you have a chance to do that even harder, by replying to this email and telling me your favorite text so far. Or tell me that you’re not feeling it and explain why. I have thick skin.
So far, the loudest among you really like cocktails and fonts. I think I just wrote the one about fonts really well, or maybe I wrote well because I have 20 years of typesetting experience. It is a piece that is not actually about picking a typeface, but is instead about doing the best with what you have, and finding empowerment in doing more with fewer things. Either way, I’m proud of it.
As for cocktails, I’m calling it early and calling a single shot of Nordes gin in a can of plain seltzer the official beverage of the summer. I know this is not a cocktail, but there are no rules anymore?
Anyway. Maybe you like something else that I have written. Please tell me. You don’t have to make it a long thing. And if you like future stuff that I write, reply to it with something small. A thumbs-up or a heart will do. Go long in your replies if you want, of course, but I write as little in my personal correspondence as possible, and I assume you try to do the same.
Spreading the good text news
As of this writing, I have queued the announcement about text on my main mailing list, the one that Draft actually posts professional stuff on. I have also announced text on the bad fascist mouthpiece of Twitter. Anything approaching the energy of a launch is now done. This took months because I wanted to roll text slowly.
I sincerely pray that all of this precipitates an exodus of jilted chefs from the old list to here. Please don’t make me automatically segment the chefs with machine learning. I don’t know how to do it and I will screw things up. I wonder how many are still listening.
Even now, text’s audience isn’t all that big, at least not by nickd standards. So I guess a thing we can do around this point is to ask you to spread the word. If you’ve enjoyed text and want to impress your friends by being cool enough to be very profoundly on the ground floor of something, then go and tell people about it.
The long game
I spend a lot of time thinking about how hungry people are. The whole piece about Goose Island was about how they were once hungry, got bought, lost the spirit, got outcompeted. How interested is a person in doing something really special in their jobs & lives? Is their heart in the craft? How does this vary over time? What does our relationship to desire look like with respect to work?
I ask these questions because I have frequently ended up on the wrong side of the equation. I do some good work, become satisfied in my life, and then start turning out crappier work. Everyone can sense it, they walk away, I get sad, and then I get hungry again and do better work. The pendulum swings back and forth, infuriating everyone, myself especially, until the end of linear time.
Since I would obviously prefer to disengage from this dynamic, I have begun initiating new work deeply mindful of it. So where is the hunger in text? I already run a consultancy that fulfills my needs, and it takes a lot of my time and energy. I would love to only write text for a living, but that isn’t going to happen overnight, especially lacking a clear direction on what is actually going to be in here. If I left the rest of my creative practice behind, text might turn out amazing, but my income would drop by three orders of magnitude. How does one creatively move things into the energetic center of a practice that already has 20 years of unrelated precedent?
I’ve tried to create some hunger by incentivizing myself and the collective to help me reach break-even on my living expenses. This is a bit of a stretch goal, and I don’t expect to reach it this week or anything, but it matters to me. Once that happens, a great deal of my creative practice will shift, and many more resources will be poured into the creation of text.
I have grown stuff from nothing before. And I’m not even starting with nothing now. So that’s hopefully worth something. We’ll see!
I will stop now
In short:
- Tell me what you like (or don’t like) about text.
- Tell others about text.
- I will keep writing text and hopefully it will be good.
The end.