Minnow II – Getting Ahead of Myself

I am writing the text of this post well in advance of when I expect to reach my promotion to Minnow II. The topic is a production tip that is seemingly obvious enough that it will doubtlessly be useful to many to hear it stated directly:

Create a buffer of presentable work and release it over time!

There is a prevailing image in which new media stars furiously type up an entry, whenever the inspiration hits, and immediately press the post button. This is just one aspect of the larger misconception that artistically valid expression must be spontaneous, which might simply be considered an aspect of a larger myth of spontaneity. Regardless of how the finished product is meant to appear...

it is almost always preferable to have a plan!

When one does any work in large quantity or over a significant space of time, one inevitably develops workflows to optimize the process. For most creative endeavors, it readily becomes apparent that creation and presentation are separate workflows:

I. Creation

Both my personal temperament and general situation cause my creative outflow to come mainly in isolated bursts. It to those that find this to also be true of themselves that I most directly address this post. Work when you have ample time and proclivity to work. If your project consists of a series of related parts, work on them concurrently or in quick succession.

Store the work you do in a dedicated place (either physical or digital) for easy access; in my case, I compose all my posts in a document titled “STEEM notebook” along with titles and tags ready for the publication phase. I also put assets such as image and video files directly on my desktop or in project folders (also directly on my desktop) until publication, after which I move them to an archive elsewhere on my computer.

One additional note: Proofreading one's own work is best done after a day or so, when one has partially forgotten the writing process, that is: when one will read the words that are actually there, rather than the internal script of what one intends to write. I am adding this paragraph during such a next-day-pass-through.

II. Presentation

I openly admit that I base much of my understanding of how to achieve success as a digital publisher on the work of (the prolific maker of short educational videos) CGP Grey. He speaks in copious detail about how he does what he does on the podcast “Cortex”. I highly recommend that anyone pursuing self employment in the creative fields listen and adapt some of his methods.