Apr
15
New Switch, plus an announcement of sorts
Filed Under Dimmer Switch, Me
First up, a Tuesday offering of The Dimmer Switch:
Second, the announcement: I am taking on a project. Well, not so much a project as it is a challenge to myself. The Dimmer Switch was originally designed to be a weekly humor column, but in all honesty, I don’t think I’ve ever gone longer than one month without missing my self imposed deadline. I’ve tried many things to help myself meet my weekly publish date, including moving the date multiple times (originally it was Sunday), but most of these changes were made in midstream as a way to allow myself more time. Basically, a deadline isn’t a deadline unless you hold yourself to it.
So I’ve decided to borrow a page from Jonathan Coulton’s Thing a Week project (borrow? More like copy directly from his paper). For those unfamiliar with Mr. Coulton’s project, he undertook the task of recording 52 songs (some original, some remixes, some remakes) over the course of a year. Using his project as inspiration, my goal for the next year is to publish a weekly humor column every week. It will be completed and available to read by 7am Thursday morning.
52 weeks, 52 Thursdays, 52 humor columns. I haven’t titled the project yet, though I’m leaning towards either Project 52 or “Thing a Week: Redux” (the second only with Mr. Coulton’s approval as I don’t want to infringe on his intellectual property). My objectives are to prove to myself and prospective editors that I can produce creative, humorous content on a steady basis, to increase my audience and to finally get paid to do this.
I also plan to take a more aggressive strategy towards publishing and syndication. I’ve come to realize over the past 3 years that the idea of publishing on the internet and hoping of finally getting “discovered” is a lot like throwing your mail into the air and entrusting the wind to deliver it for you. It works on rare occasions, but there has to be a better way.
The project will technically start next Thursday, although I will be publishing something this week. It’s an updated version of one of the first things I ever wrote so it’s technically not new, but it felt like a good piece to kick off the project.
For those placing bets, the over/under on when I will miss a deadline is currently set at 6 weeks. Any takers?
[...] Hmmm. 6 weeks. Just like I predicted. [...]