Category Archives: writing

I know you are thinking, “Gosh. Can it get any more boring?”

I’m thinking, “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

How did I become a writer? I learned to write at age 4 or 5 and then just never stopped. As a teenager, I self published a book of the most angst ridden crappy poetry the world will likely ever see and found the courage — the audacity — to sell it. To people I liked! As a young man at the dawn of the Internet, I co-wrote a zine, posted half-baked prose on a BBS, and emailed my work to my friends on AOL. I co-wrote and published a general interest magazine for handheld devices. No matter my occupation or job, I never let it get in the way of writing — making art and putting it out there — every day.

If you want to get better at your art, you have to make your art every day. If you want your art to spread and gain an audience, you have to put what you make out there into the world. And, more often than not, that means looking for something to inspire that art. Some days, that may mean some deep, soul moving, insight never before explored. Some days, it may be blogging your breakfast¹. Some days that means the great stuff. Some days that means the less than great stuff. Some days that means the truly boring stuff. But you have to find the courage to put it out there for others to see, share, shred, or otherwise speculate on it. You often may not like what you hear but you take it and go back and make more art tomorrow.

I |sairk|referrer|eirhk
sit down at the keyboard and pretend I know what I’m doing or writing about or know how to make complete sentences.

I pretend that I have something to say and that others want to hear it. That they need to hear it.

I pretend that it is more important than any of the other far more important things I could be doing.

I pretend that book I just wrote is the best thing I’ve ever written.

I pretend the next one will be even better.

I pretend I’m not procrastinating on writing the next book by still writing this one instead.

In other words (and in so many more ways than this), I fake it.

But, then, someone quotes a complete sentence I wrote because they enjoyed it.

Someone else tells me that I said something they needed to hear.

Then my wife tells me the work I’m doing is important.

And someone whose work I admire tells me they enjoyed my book and they think the next will be even better.

Then, I realize that I could not have finished writing my next book without laying the groundwork and learning some lessons from this one.

Then I know I’ve made it.

For |sttti|referrer|sdsks
those that have been following the site the past few days, you probably know that, instead of my regular new daily posts, I have been updating an existing one — So You Want To Be A Mac Consultant Now… Not only have I been updating it but I, essentially, never stopped writing it. I published edits and additions to the post several times a day. Sometimes just a word was changed. Sometimes I added several hundred words. Sometimes, I rearranged the whole thing entirely. What started out as a simple adjunct to a popular three year old post quickly became something else entirely.

And this thing is it is still changing. While I have decided the post as it stands now, feature compete, my writing on this subject is far from over. I have taken what is up and compiled it, and released an eBook – what I’m calling So, You Want To Be An Apple Consultant… (A Minimal Guide) — and future updates will be added there. You can buy the latest version of it here:

Apple Consulting — A Minimal Guide

I wish I could tell you that this was all part of a well executed plan. That I meant all along to turn this thing tat started as a conversation on ADN into a whole mini-book series. But, all I did was sit down and start writing. And, as I wrote more and more the possibilities started to reveal themselves to me. Some of these revelations came from my head, some from conversations with others, some from a simple off-handed remark. But I can tell you that, by sharing and engaging others in updates and discussions in near-real time with the writing helped to breathe a whole new life into the work at each turn and the opportunities then presented themselves.

It has been quite fun writing this way and giving others a chance to see a work grow and evolve practically before your eyes. To see an idea start and grow and change. Because I was writing and publishing so quickly those who were attentive enough got to see the mess in real-time (and see me attempt to clean it up just as fast). There is a certain fear a writer must overcome to work this way and I feel good for facing it as the impostor it is. I will certainly consider something like this again should the right subject present itself in the future. In fact, I’ve already laid the groundwork for this case.

I thought it would be useful to others if I shared some of the tools I used to write, edit, publish, and sell it in a matter of a few days:

• Byword — My Mac text editor of choice these days. Great support for markdown.

• Draft — This really cool, web based tool, makes it super easy to work with an editor. It’s fast, straight forward, and fun to use. Plus, it supports Markdown.

• Marked — I mainly use this less for previewing the Markdown formatting and more for being able to copy it to clipboard as Rich Text so I can easily send it to…

• Scrivener — This is where the Guide is formatted and compiled into eBook form.

• Gumroad — Super simple and well designed service for selling digital goods online. The cut they take is more than fair and you can literally have something up and selling in under 5 minutes.

Thanks to all of those that have followed along. And a special thanks to Jason Remus for his editing work and guidance in figuring out the next step and Aaron Mahnke for quick work on a cover and logo.

More to come.