Heyaa,
How often do you blog? Letās just say, writeā¦ How often do you write? No, no, that also doesnāt sound write right.
How often do you work for/with yourself? On a hobby or a side project apart from work?
Once a day? Over the weekend? āBro, Iāve no time after workā times a month?
You better ramp up.
Mostly, we don't start something because we wait for the right time. We wonāt admit that so we make excuses.
āI was going to journal after 15 minutes of news, but I couldnāt find the remote. Spent the next hour looking for it, and then I was tired. I just wasnāt in the mood.ā
At other times, we just think itās not going to be perfect. We arenāt ready. So, we don't even give it a try.
Six years ago, I started freelancing on a whim. I didnāt even know that freelance writing is an industry.
I knew I can write. And I wanted to make some money. Thatās it. The target was to get $100 in six months. Yes, just 100, as I mentioned in a previous newsletter: Itās all an achievement.
Did I have a charismatic writing style? No. Did I have a lavish vocabulary in English? Nopes. Did I have the confidence to be among the top freelancers? Nada.
I just wanted to take it for a drive, ignoring everything I didnāt have and couldnāt do.
Yes, I do try to be as perfect with client work, as perfect as I can. And itās taking a toll on my own writing projects.
My side projects are getting sidelined, just because I canāt find enough time to blog, taking care of each detail delicately.
So, Iām trying to ignore again. Ignoring the itch to be perfect.
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OK, back to my storyā¦
What happened last month is that I had an idea, like the 147 others every month.
I worked out a list of book recommendation articles. 79 articles to be precise. The final count upon completion might change.)
I thought of giving myself a challenge: to write all those articles in February itself. Donāt gasp!
It was an outrageous goal. The reality hit on the first day itself. A lone panda canāt do 80 articles in a month.
40 sounds reachable though. And Iāve been on track so far. Yep, completed 10 in the last seven days. Yay!
Just want to be SaaS-y. Build, launch, and get it out in the open. No grammar check. No typo check. Write and publish the ver. 1 of all articles.
Ignoring the compulsion to fine-tune before publishing. Just getting them out of the system for once. In the endeavour to be perfect, we just keep procrastinating.
Using ChatGPT for short descriptions of the books. Itās not great. But has been assisting well. It has been a saviour in whipping up these mundane, repetitive listicles.Ā
I even used it for recommending books for my article topics.
But that turned out to be disastrous. ChatGPT is concocting its own fancies with real books and sneaking book names that don't even exist.
Wasted hours in fact-checking each recommendation once I caught it in this devious act.
Its book descriptions are at least usable. So, still looking for the sweet spot where ChatGPT pulls itself together and acts as a productive assistant.
Once all the articles are out flying, popping up in searches on screens around the Internet, Iāll work towards optimizing them.
They will be bland. Yes.
They will be soulless. Yes, just like most AI-generated pieces.
But they will be out there helping people in need.
Iāll make them alive later. Will add relevant images. Will connect with other relevant resources properly. Will put in the soul.
For now, Iāll just code in the ver. 1.
And thatās all for today.
Bidding adieu.
Live long and prosper.
See you next week, with another story.