This is text. Text intentions
I will discuss text now. I won’t discuss text often, but if you are going to discuss text on text, it should definitely be at the beginning of text.
There is already so much text, and I know I’m adding to it, and I’m almost sorry. This is necessary. Think of it like a radio broadcast, or FAX, where the whole point is the practice, and what happens goes into the ether. Riding a groove of text. Read it once and move on. There is an archive and an RSS feed, and I waffled a lot on whether to turn them on, but I guess it might be nice to compile text for posterity, and also I might write some text about publishing text in book form someday, if people find this interesting.
As mentioned, there are three hard-and-fast permanent rules:
- Bold, italic, links, headings, and block quotes. This is challenging as a designer & photographer! But this list isn’t called image, is it?
- No “hot takes.” If you read text in a year, it should make about as much sense. I don’t vibe on reactivity.
- Don’t waste the reader’s time. Self-explanatory. Good text is short.
I will also set some intentions. Future text will deviate from the intentions, because I plan on continuing to grow as a person after I send this.
The first, and most important, is to impart a sense of wonder. Despite how terrible the past couple of years have been for everyone, myself included, it remains kind of amazing to be alive and conscious, and to exist here, in this world. I love being alive. I find new things to be grateful for every single day. We are all doomscrolling enough; I want to create a space for joy & healing.
I also want to show different ways of looking at things. Sure, I could rant for 1,500 words on my tea canister. But why get a tea canister when a Ball jar would do? Why not just use the stupid ball jar? It’s not just enough to say “this was made by people in Japan;” instead, why not dive into it, analyze every property of the thing, and then just use a Ball jar anyway.
I am gleefully ignoring the broader conversation. If you want a deep dive into NFTs, there are plenty elsewhere. I spend a long time thinking about something before I decide to write about it.
I am keeping it simple. The home page is 6KB. Our mailing list provider is run by one guy. Our hosting is… also run by one guy. When I’m not asking for tech support, I send them dank memes.
I am writing enough to answer a thing. Each brick of text should take you from one place to another place. That could take 200 words or 20,000.
I assume you are smarter, wittier, more well-read, and generally more accomplished & likable than me, and I write accordingly.
And finally, the goal is to make these into actual good writing. My drafts need at least 3 rounds of edits before they can look good enough to go live. I know my process well by now, it’s just a matter of executing on it.
That’s it.
As you might have read on our home page, tomorrow’s update will be for those who gloriously, immaculately choose to pay for text. Get on that if you haven’t yet. In general, there will be 2 or 3 swaths of glorious, astonishing text every week. Thanks, as always, for reading.