I did season one of this podcast a couple of years ago.

I did 15 episodes. They were about some of the basics of building up a writing habit, and then I stopped. In this season, I am going to explore how to restart projects in the context of restarting this one.

I want to talk about one of the lessons I’ve learned.

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I made this podcast, but I wanted to self-host, so I learned how to do that with s3 and wrote my own way to get analytics. So, Podcasting leads to programming. And then I wrote up a blog about that program (so it led back to writing) and now I am telling you about it on this podcast. Round and round it goes.

The more times I go around the circle, the easier it becomes to write or podcast or program about one of the other things I’m doing. The content for this podcast is mostly taken from a blog post I made in February. Back then I just said that I should come up with some way to combine programming and writing more. This podcast was the result of that thinking.

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Last week I encouraged you to collect general knowledge. Viking trade routes, anime, Rothko paintings, architecture, typography, bluegrass standards — where ever your interests lead you.

For these kinds of things, it may be hard to write a note though. You could certainly write down something, but it’s unlikely that you’ll develop a few paragraphs of a coherent thought about lots of random things.

James Webb Young said to use index cards for that. That would certainly work, but I recommend using spaced-repetition card software instead.

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New ideas are combinations of old ones.

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In the past, when I set goals to write more frequently, I was always stopped by not having ideas ready for what to write about. Or when I got one, I didn’t have a systematic way of collecting them. I would sit down to write, but getting started on a new piece was too difficult.

My ONE thing is make it so that when I sit down to write I have a checklist to work from.

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I know that a lot of my episodes are variations on the theme of quantity. In episode one, I asked you to write morning pages every day. In episode 4, I asked you to make a schedule where you write multiple days a week. I’ve talked about the importance of producing many first drafts. In episode 8, I said you should lower your bar and just last week I shared my personal “why”, which is all about playing the infinite game because it’s fun. The title of this podcast is a play on the idea of the infinite game.

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The exercise this week is to think about your “why”? I don’t think it’s wrong to write for money or fame, but if you’re an amateur like me, I’d find something easier to attain.

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I don’t use a lot of social media, but if I don’t plan my time intentionally, I’ll find myself watching a lot of YouTube.

It’s not that I think that my life should be 100% dedicated to making new things or in solitary contemplation. But, there are times when I notice that level of output isn’t where I want it to be, and so I take a good look at how I am spending my time.

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This episode is about lowering the bar, and I’m tempted to just say to go do it and sign off.

I won’t do that, but I am going to keep the bar on this episode pretty low. Now, you’re probably thinking — Lou, I thought the bar for Write While True episodes was pretty low already.

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Lately, I’m thinking a lot about what this podcast sounds like. I’m new to podcasting and I’m very aware that I have a lot to do to sound more natural, but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about.

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