<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Rough Drafts by Dylan Tweney]]></title><description><![CDATA[Notes on the craft of writing and rewriting ~ listening and leadership ~ communication and connection ~ plus a sprinkling of swimming, meditation, and banjos ~]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!S9u3!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ca2c497-cd2c-42c4-9baa-9237a8eab677_400x400.png</url><title>Rough Drafts by Dylan Tweney</title><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 21 May 2026 22:55:13 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://newsletter.tweney.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney ]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[dylan20@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[dylan20@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[dylan20@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[dylan20@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[How to measure content effectiveness]]></title><description><![CDATA[Quantitative and qualitative metrics you can use to study and improve content production]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/how-to-measure-content-effectiveness</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/how-to-measure-content-effectiveness</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2024 15:30:37 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523901839036-a3030662f220?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw1fHxtZWFzdXJlbWVudHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTI5Mzk4NzR8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1523901839036-a3030662f220?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw1fHxtZWFzdXJlbWVudHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTI5Mzk4NzR8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" 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fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@siora18">Siora Photography</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>The final step in my six-part <a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/tapping-into-your-teams-writing-powers/">POWERS process for team-oriented content production</a> is to <strong>study the results.</strong></p><p>If you don&#8217;t pay attention to the effectiveness of your content, it&#8217;s difficult or impossible to improve it. What may be worse is that it&#8217;s also impossible to prove that the content was worth the investment.</p><p>So studying the results &#8212; quantitatively and/or qualitatively &#8212; is an essential final step. It allows you to close the loop and start the next content project smarter and better prepared.</p><p>Most of the teams I&#8217;ve worked with have done this step only sporadically. As valuable as the exercise is, teams often have difficulty finding the time to do a proper retrospective (or, as we call them in the newspaper and magazine business, a post-mortem) on all but the biggest projects.</p><p>Still, I urge every team I work with to make time for this whenever possible. Even if it&#8217;s an informal review by a couple of team leaders, rather than a formal retrospective involving all team members, there is still value in assessing what worked and what didn&#8217;t.</p><p>The more you can make this kind of review habitual, the faster you will be able to identify and correct production problems, improving your processes and getting more efficient at producing good content quickly.</p><p>Here are a few different ways you can measure the effectiveness of your content.</p><p><em><strong>Dylan&#8217;s newsletter has moved to a new website! To continue reading this post, please click here: <a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/how-to-measure-content-effectiveness/">How to measure content effectiveness</a></strong></em> </p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Notes from a totality]]></title><description><![CDATA[&#9728;&#65039;&#127761;&#127758; What a solar eclipse can do to you]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/notes-from-a-totality</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/notes-from-a-totality</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Apr 2024 20:30:22 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KxGH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3e9e5bdc-cf85-4b34-8de3-8e941914e8a4_1200x695.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" 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y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p><em>Today&#8217;s solar eclipse was far from total where I was. In Northern California, the Moon blocked at most about one-third of the Sun. Of course, I watched it, with Karen, sitting in our driveway with a colander (to make a constellation of pinhole-camera crescent Sun images on the ground). We chatted with our neighbors, one of whom lent us his eclipse glasses. We tried to convince the recycling truck driver to take a look, but he said he was too nervous.</em></p><p><em>I am a little sad that I couldn&#8217;t be back home in Ohio, where I grew up. My hometown, Bowling Green, was scheduled for about 4 minutes of totality today &#8212; although clouds might have obscured the sight. I have been thinking about returning for this event for several years now. But my life circumstances aren&#8217;t favorable for such a trip right now, so I settled for a partial eclipse from here.</em></p><p><em>I thought back to the 2017 total eclipse, which I watched from Oregon, along with my family, on a trip that my late father had planned years in advance.</em></p><p><em>So I wanted to share an essay (with some embedded haiku) I wrote about the experience. </em></p><p><em>What was your experience of the eclipse? Write back or drop a comment on this post &#8212; I&#8217;d love to hear from you. </em></p><p>Instead of sunrise and sunset, Buckminster Fuller suggested we use &#8220;sunsight&#8221; and &#8220;sunclipse,&#8221; words that make explicit what happens in a more accurate, heliocentric view of things. The Sun does not move; we, carried along on the surface of the Earth, turn away. The Sun didn&#8217;t go anywhere. It became hidden, for a while, behind the Earth. Then, some hours later, we turn back into the light, and the Sun appears to rise as it becomes visible, bit by bit, over the limb of the very planet we stand on.</p><p>By this way of thinking, a solar eclipse is a special instance of sunclipse. Instead of the Earth, it&#8217;s the Moon eclipsing the Sun. The fact that it appears to do so rarely, and that it does it so perfectly, with the disc of the Moon almost exactly matching the disc of the Sun, has to do with the relative sizes and distances of the three bodies. A perfect celestial coincidence.</p><p>It&#8217;s easy to imagine a different solar system in which eclipses of the Sun by our Moon never happen or happen constantly; where the apparent size of the Moon is much smaller or much larger than the Sun. Nevertheless, here we are, on this particular planet, where eclipses of the Sun by the Moon happen rarely enough and locally enough that they are worth seeking out.</p><p>As I stood there in a field adjacent to a motel parking lot in far eastern Oregon, watching the August 2017 eclipse happen with my wife, my children, my father and my stepmother, this experience of celestial motion touched me deeply. Just how deeply would not become apparent for several years. But that moment of witnessing the Moon covering up the Sun, plunging us into almost-night, caused something to start moving in me. </p><p>Like a struck bell, I experienced a vibration that continued long after the Sun returned to view and the black disc of the Moon slid away and disappeared into the blue light of day.</p><p>Annie Dillard has written about the experience of totality, when &#8220;the sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover.&#8221; She writes that at that moment, she left the world of the living and entered a dead universe, her mind light-years distant, looking at her husband through the eyes of ancient ones living in the Euphrates River valley harvesting einkorn with stone sickles. She wrote: &#8220;It was all over.&#8221;</p><p>Unlike Annie Dillard, I did not lose my mind right away. In my case, it took time.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em>Dylan&#8217;s newsletter has moved to a new site! To continue reading this post, please click here:</em> </p><h2><strong><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/04/08/notes-from-a-totality-2/">Dylan Tweney - Notes from a totality</a></strong></h2><p></p><p></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Release management for content products]]></title><description><![CDATA[A checklist for teams preparing to publish content]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/release-management-for-content-products</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/release-management-for-content-products</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2024 16:30:29 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 424w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 848w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1272w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" width="3000" height="2000" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:2000,&quot;width&quot;:3000,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;a person holding a small fish and getting ready to throw it back into the water&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="a person holding a small fish and getting ready to throw it back into the water" title="a person holding a small fish and getting ready to throw it back into the water" srcset="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 424w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 848w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1272w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1542216172-894e28703f83?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyMnx8cmVsZWFzZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MTIxOTEzNjZ8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Release the Kraken! Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kellysikkema">Kelly Sikkema</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>If you&#8217;ve been following along the past few weeks, I&#8217;ve been going through the stages of <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/tapping-into-your-teams-writing-powers">the POWERS process for creating and publishing content as a team</a>.</p><p>For the most recent stages of the process, check out my pieces on <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/how-to-write">getting started writing</a>, <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/avoid-the-blank-page">writing as a team</a>, and <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/what-does-an-editor-actually-do">the role of an editor</a>.</p><p>Today, I&#8217;m going to share how my teams approach one of the final steps: Getting ready to release the content product. (That&#8217;s the R in POWERS.)</p><p>Whether you&#8217;re publishing to an internal blog, handing copy off to an internal design team, or submitting an article to a news publication that takes op-eds and bylines, you want to ensure that you&#8217;re doing everything you can to make the handoff smooth and seamless. The easier you can make it on the recipients, the more likely they&#8217;ll be able to publish your content quickly.</p><p>Like a crew of astronauts or the flight crew on a commercial airliner, a content team will greatly benefit from having a preflight checklist to ensure everything is in order before you press Send.</p><p><em><strong>First, though &#8212; I would like to ask for your feedback.</strong> Is this team-writing process useful to you? Would you find it useful to have a book (printed or electronic) that served as a detailed guide and handbook for writing and producing content as a team?</em></p><div class="poll-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;id&quot;:162537}" data-component-name="PollToDOM"></div><h2><strong>Prepublication</strong></h2><p>Although the content may be publication-ready, there&#8217;s almost always a bit more work before you can drop it into your content management system or send it off to the op-ed editor who&#8217;s promised to look at it. There&#8217;s metadata, such as the author&#8217;s full, correct title and bio. There&#8217;s often a call to action that you need to add at the end, including a trackable URL with a UTM code. You&#8217;ll probably need some imagery, including possibly the author&#8217;s photo, any charts or diagrams to illustrate specific points within the piece, and a &#8220;hero&#8221; image for the top of the piece.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p>Dylan&#8217;s newsletter has moved to a new site! To continue reading this post, please click through here:</p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/04/04/release-management-for-content-products/">Release management for content products</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What does an editor actually do?]]></title><description><![CDATA[And what does it mean to be an editor?]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/what-does-an-editor-actually-do</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/what-does-an-editor-actually-do</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 29 Mar 2024 15:30:41 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg" width="1456" height="854" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:854,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:297146,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;black and white photograph showing an editor standing next to a woman at a typewriter, marking a page while she looks on&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="black and white photograph showing an editor standing next to a woman at a typewriter, marking a page while she looks on" title="black and white photograph showing an editor standing next to a woman at a typewriter, marking a page while she looks on" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!So2z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15413a94-54c2-47a0-a14e-24c84c5aa020_1478x867.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Newspaper editing in 1940. Source: <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/0d4c90f0-3631-0138-344c-3b3716e34ec4">NYPL Digital Collections</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>A few weeks ago, I used an image in this newsletter that I wish I hadn&#8217;t.</p><p>It was a picture of a little sign on someone&#8217;s desk that said, &#8220;Write without fear. Edit without mercy.&#8221;</p><p>I kind of regret using that image because editing without mercy is not my style. I can be blunt, yes &#8212; but I also try to be kind.</p><p>I&#8217;d rather say something like, <strong>&#8220;Write without fear. Edit with clear-eyed compassion.&#8221;</strong></p><p>The goal of an edit is to improve the copy &#8212; and, ideally, to improve the writer in the process. You can&#8217;t do that if you&#8217;re merciless, because while you might be making the words better, it&#8217;s entirely possible that you&#8217;re hurting the person behind them.</p><p>The best editors know how to improve copy and writer at the same time. That takes a clear understanding of how language works, what the rules are, and which rules you can get away with bending or breaking. It also requires compassionate insight into the writer and an understanding of how they might benefit from your feedback.</p><p>By the way, that applies whether you&#8217;re editing someone else&#8217;s work or your own. Revise your own words with the clear eyes of an editor, but be compassionate to your writing self while you&#8217;re doing it.</p><h2><strong>Why we edit</strong></h2><p>Editing is an essential component of any writing process, whether it involves one person or a dozen.</p><p>Editing is crucial because it&#8217;s the quality-control phase: It eliminates errors, strengthens weak copy, reduces inconsistencies, and ensures that the copy aligns with the client&#8217;s goals, tone, and expectations for excellence.&nbsp;</p><p>Editing is also important because it frees up the writer (or writers) to simply write. <strong>Write first, then edit.</strong> Separating creation from optimization is, it turns out, an extremely useful step in facilitating easier and less painful writing. When you can turn off your internal editor, it becomes easier to let the words flow, knowing that you or your editor can catch and correct any problems later.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em><strong>Dylan&#8217;s newsletter has moved! Please continue reading this post by clicking here:</strong></em></p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/29/what-does-an-editor-actually-do/">What does an editor actually do?</a></h2><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Avoiding that "Untitled document" feeling in Google Docs]]></title><description><![CDATA[A good collaborative writing process should never leave anyone unsure of what they need to write next]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/avoid-the-blank-page</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/avoid-the-blank-page</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:15:57 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/de7590d6-1191-47f6-bac8-7fa6f635e286_355x395.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png" width="753" height="420" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:420,&quot;width&quot;:753,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:60282,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Screenshot showing a new, untitled Google document with nothing in it except a cursor on the upper left of a blank page&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Screenshot showing a new, untitled Google document with nothing in it except a cursor on the upper left of a blank page" title="Screenshot showing a new, untitled Google document with nothing in it except a cursor on the upper left of a blank page" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Gg1x!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff0884be0-dfd9-49dd-ba4d-f7eb88e0cd11_753x420.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>You know that feeling when you're staring at a brand-new Google Doc, and it's completely white except for the blinking cursor in the upper left?</p><p>Sometimes this blankness is an open field of possibility, but more often than not, it's stress-inducing.</p><p>For individual writers, it can lead to writer&#8217;s block. Or it can lead to a desperate banging away at the keyboard in hopes that something good will come out.&nbsp;</p><p>I&#8217;ve been struggling with the latter response this week as I&#8217;ve been working on some personal writing projects. I don&#8217;t know exactly what I want to say, yet, but I&#8217;m putting a lot of different things onto the page. Maybe some of them will work out, but probably most will just go into the scrapyard.</p><p>This can feel good, in a perverse sort of way, if you&#8217;re a solo writer and it&#8217;s part of your creative process. But if you&#8217;re part of a team tasked with producing content, creative angst isn&#8217;t going to be a healthy addition to the team dynamic.</p><p>That's why a good collaborative writing process is all about avoiding the blank page.&nbsp;</p><p>I don&#8217;t want anyone on my team to be facing an impassively blinking cursor, not knowing how to get started. At every step of the way, everyone should have something to start with: an outline, an assignment brief, or just an email from a client asking if we could write something for them.&nbsp; &#8230;</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Hey there! I&#8217;ve moved this newsletter to a new website. Please continue reading this post here:</strong></em></p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/22/avoid-the-blank-page/">Avoiding that "Untitled document" feeling in Google Docs</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to write - and how to avoid writer's block]]></title><description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;ve been following the team-writing process I outlined a couple of weeks ago, you&#8217;ll reach a point where you have an assignment brief and an outline. Now you&#8217;re ready to write.]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/how-to-write</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/how-to-write</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 12 Mar 2024 18:18:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg" width="789" height="386" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:386,&quot;width&quot;:789,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:107437,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;photo of a red timer shaped like a tomato sitting on a desk with computer cables in the background&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="photo of a red timer shaped like a tomato sitting on a desk with computer cables in the background" title="photo of a red timer shaped like a tomato sitting on a desk with computer cables in the background" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NAVk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb62517e0-a918-4f99-8370-bea4f292ca78_789x386.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Set a timer, like this cute Pomodoro, for 25 minutes. Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/standout/5222790553/in/photolist-89b3w6-8XwaEZ-8G51WH-aDtDfz-aDxv73-b9JjFK-24bxx7v-e6YL8h-bBRoVo-pGak5s-2hVBN3D-2pqPqQD-9c6ZRR-e1FjLs-a4sbKW-a4sbL5">David Svensson</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>If you&#8217;ve been following the team-writing process I outlined a couple of weeks ago, you&#8217;ll reach a point where you have an <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/getting-ready-to-write">assignment brief</a> (however brief it may be) and an <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/organizing-and-outlining">outline</a>. Now, you&#8217;re ready to write.</p><p>In some ways, this part should be the easiest. You&#8217;re well-prepared, and you&#8217;re not staring down a blank page. Quite the contrary: My <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/tapping-into-your-teams-writing-powers">team-writing process</a> gives you a roadmap that spells out exactly where the writing needs to go and what needs to happen at each point.&nbsp;</p><p>What you need to do now is fairly straightforward:</p><ul><li><p>Write through the outline until you have a complete first draft</p></li><li><p>Take a break (get a cup of tea, or let the draft sit overnight)</p></li><li><p>Go through your draft line by line to revise it and clean it up as necessary</p></li><li><p>Share the draft with the rest of your team</p></li></ul><p>No problem, right?</p><p>In fact, a lot of the writing advice you&#8217;ll find in books and online won&#8217;t apply at this point. With a well-structured team-writing process, the challenge at this point isn&#8217;t so much about discovering your voice or getting the creative juices flowing: It&#8217;s more about filling in the outline and creating the first draft of what the client wants.</p><p>In the simplest case, you start at the top of the outline and go through it section by section, writing paragraphs that correspond to each bulleted (or numbered) item. When you reach the end, you&#8217;re done with the first rough draft.</p><p>If the team has prepared a good outline, you should have everything you need to create this draft right there: Examples, sources, references, links, a writing style guide, and so forth. Ideally, the team has already spelled out the specifications for what you&#8217;re creating in the assignment brief, so you know what length you&#8217;re aiming for, along with any other essential characteristics, such as style, guidance on headlines and subheads, and so forth.</p><p>Still, problems do crop up. So here are some tips for writing through your outline with minimal hassle.</p><p><strong>Write the way you speak. </strong>Business writing tends to get too stiff and formal, with many complex sentences, dependent clauses, and excessive passive voice. I think this is because people get it into their heads that they need to de-personalize the copy or write in a more &#8220;official&#8221; style because they're writing for an organization. This never works out well.&nbsp;</p><p>Instead, start your writing by putting down on the page, as directly as you can, what you would tell a friend about the topic. If it helps, imagine telling your mother, your significant other, or a curious and intelligent niece or nephew about it. Leave out the casual chitchat phrases you&#8217;d put into a normal conversation, but otherwise, put what you&#8217;d say straight onto the page.</p><p>If it&#8217;s too weird to imagine talking to someone or too difficult to translate that into typing, imagine writing an email to a friend or coworker you like and trust.&nbsp;</p><p>Some people I know find it helpful to speak aloud as they write &#8212; to test sentences out by walking around and saying them out loud. When they sound right, they sit back at the computer and start typing.</p><p>Other people (including myself) have found it&#8217;s sometimes easier to dictate a section of text. Turn on your computer&#8217;s speech-to-text dictation and just start talking to it.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em><strong>Hey there! I&#8217;ve moved my newsletter to a new website. To read the rest of these tips, please click through to the rest of this post here:</strong></em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/12/how-to-write/" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg" width="300" height="147" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:147,&quot;width&quot;:300,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;How to write - and how to avoid writer's block&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/12/how-to-write/&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="How to write - and how to avoid writer's block" title="How to write - and how to avoid writer's block" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jjb6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d7ac5bb-20c7-446e-a63d-5311d8aa2b39_300x147.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/12/how-to-write/">How to write - and how to avoid writer's block</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Three ways to write an outline - plus one that is better than all the others]]></title><description><![CDATA[Seriously, you need an outline]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/organizing-and-outlining</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/organizing-and-outlining</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2024 18:32:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg" width="974" height="622" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:622,&quot;width&quot;:974,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:177624,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;photo of a school notebook page showing a formal outline written in pencil with a child's handwriting&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="photo of a school notebook page showing a formal outline written in pencil with a child's handwriting" title="photo of a school notebook page showing a formal outline written in pencil with a child's handwriting" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Un6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1b5af857-5f62-4424-87bf-645ba495bc7d_974x622.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">If I said you don&#8217;t have to write outlines like this ever again, would that help? Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/workandplaydaybyday/6057960500/in/photolist-aejCAQ-gn42Na-7axDfR-bfSgtH-gn3HLF-dqW69o-nyPb6n-jZjV1c-DFMUUw-e1EwjE-dA6cCq-rNLxKm-cuScES-2cWEgqZ-yQVRPQ-moSN7c-yR9SAc-o4fqn6-bFaBfJ-aCfPBm-z6fWWh-8cGfuT-ybBNwp-DQdAQp-cnqS4u-oiWewy-czmwWA-J8tiNT-z9kQT2-rhGFHs-iZmiTH-KFKksS-aCt6tr-cPzgoQ-ovyeTe-kYrUb9-91vcjw-DN3rx9-5pUDHc-7tKSnw-cnwmV7-nntdMz-k7sKT6-wU7CNW-z6mVmb-pNmf4Y-yR2QwW-azhVHi-91oQrY-afM677">Heidi/Flickr</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>The heart of a well-organized writing project is an outline.</p><p>This is a surprisingly controversial statement. I know many writers hate working with an outline, and for creative projects, their reluctance is understandable.</p><p>But for team writing, some kind of outline &#8212; even if it&#8217;s just a basic set of bullet points &#8212; is essential.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Without an outline, you&#8217;re writing aimlessly, wandering across the page, not knowing where you&#8217;re going. (This can be fun for creative writing; in business writing, it&#8217;s torture.) Without an outline, the assignment is like a monkey on your back. Without an outline, the writer you&#8217;ve given the assignment to will have no idea how to organize what they write and may well produce something that completely misses the point. Without an outline, the client has no guidance on what to expect and may well be surprised (often unpleasantly) by the draft your team eventually produces.</p><p>You can start writing without an outline but you&#8217;ll likely run into all these problems and maybe others. Even if the outline is quickly done and you only share it with a small number of people &#8212; or even if it&#8217;s just for yourself &#8212; writing an outline is the simplest way I know of to make writing easier, faster, and to get a better-finished product at the end.</p><p>The outline turns an assignment from a bear into a beautiful racehorse, from a headwind into a tailwind.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Three basic ways of outlining</strong></h2><p>There are several different kinds of outlines, so getting clear about what might work best for your team is helpful.</p><ul><li><p>Formal multi-level outline with Roman numerals, capital letters, etc.</p></li><li><p>Informal multi-level outline with bullets and sub-bullets</p></li><li><p>A simple single-level list of bullets</p></li></ul><p><em>The formal outline</em> is something that most of us learned in school. It goes something like this:</p><div class="preformatted-block" data-component-name="PreformattedTextBlockToDOM"><label class="hide-text" contenteditable="false">Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published</label><pre class="text">I. You start with Roman numerals for the top-level headings.
   A. Next-level headings use capital letters.
       1. Then you switch to Arabic numerals.
            a. And maybe even lowercase letters for fourth-level headings.
       2. It&#8217;s relatively easy to see how ideas and sub-ideas group together.
   B. But sometimes it can feel a little laborious filling all this out.
II. And by the time you get to the end &#8230;
   A. You might feel like you&#8217;re filling out a form.
   B. Especially if you want to make sure every section has at least two sub-points.</pre></div><p>Needless to say, this is not the most useful approach for most practical content creation. If you&#8217;re producing an academic paper or a very structured piece of long-form content, such as a textbook or a user manual, this kind of formal outline can help make a complex structure clear. But for most projects under a few thousand words, this kind of approach is overkill. Besides, its formality induces a kind of stiffness, and it&#8217;s easy to lose any sense of narrative flow.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em><strong>I&#8217;ve moved my newsletter back to my main website at dylan.tweney.com. To read the rest of this post, please click over to its new home:</strong></em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/05/organizing-and-outlining/" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg" width="300" height="192" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:192,&quot;width&quot;:300,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Three ways to write an outline - plus one that is better than all the others&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/05/organizing-and-outlining/&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Three ways to write an outline - plus one that is better than all the others" title="Three ways to write an outline - plus one that is better than all the others" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XEkO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd857df33-2477-4856-81b1-5c422488794d_300x192.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/03/05/organizing-and-outlining/">Three ways to write an outline - plus one that is better than all the others</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to start a writing project with a team]]></title><description><![CDATA[Preparation is everything - which doesn't mean we always do it. Here are two crucial tools for preparing a team to start writing.]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/getting-ready-to-write</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/getting-ready-to-write</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 28 Feb 2024 17:37:21 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!S9u3!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ca2c497-cd2c-42c4-9baa-9237a8eab677_400x400.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of freewriting lately, taking inspiration from creativity teachers like Natalie Goldberg, Julia Cameron, and Lynda Barry (Lynda Barry! is! amazing!).</p><p>The idea is that you sit down with some blank pages in front of you and just start writing, either for a set amount of time (10 or 15 minutes) or until you&#8217;ve filled up a certain number of pages (2 or 3).&nbsp;</p><p>Don&#8217;t worry about what&#8217;s coming out; just focus on writing words. Or, if you get stuck, you can do some doodling and just enjoy the way the lines spill out of your pen onto the page.</p><p>The important thing is to keep the pen moving.</p><p>Freewriting is a fabulous exercise for unlocking your inner creativity.</p><p>It&#8217;s also pretty much the <strong>opposite</strong> of how you want to start with a collaborative team writing project &#8212; unless your goal is to spark maximum creativity. In that case, give everyone on your team some blank paper and some pens, and free up an hour for them to start scribbling ideas.</p><p>This is not a bad idea, actually, and more corporations should consider creativity workshops like this instead of trying to figure out what formula will let them use AI to produce as much cookie-cutter SEO content as possible without human intervention.</p><p>(Prediction: Within the coming year, AI content will be so generic and ubiquitous that we&#8217;ll start prizing actual stories from actual human beings. We will crave human connection amid the coming flood of AI-powered bullshit, and the real human voices will &#8212; I hope &#8212; stand out like lighthouses on a foggy night.</p><p>If you want the help of an experienced journalist and storyteller so that you can be the lighthouse instead of the fog, <a href="mailto:dylan@tweney.com">let&#8217;s talk</a>.)</p><p>That said, most content projects don&#8217;t aim at stimulating wild creativity but at <strong>producing a specific deliverable</strong>: A blog post, a byline, a white paper, or an e-book.</p><p>When kicking off a writing project like this, it's beneficial for everyone to agree on a few key things:</p><ul><li><p>what we&#8217;re doing</p></li><li><p>when it&#8217;s due</p></li><li><p>why we&#8217;re doing it</p></li></ul><p>Such alignment is as necessary for a small project like a short blog post as it is for something big like an annual report.&nbsp;</p><p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean content teams always do this. I've worked on plenty of projects that started without a clear idea of what we were doing. It inevitably leads to wasted work and confusion down the line.</p><blockquote><p>Client: "We need a byline on topic X. We'll put our CTO's name on it."</p><p>Me: "Great. When is it due, and what's the goal?"</p><p>Client: "It's an open deadline, but we'd like it by the end of next week. The goal? We need some media hits, but we don&#8217;t have any news to announce, so the goal is to publish this byline.&#8221;</p><p>Me: &#8220;Okay &#8230;&#8221;</p></blockquote><p>Two or three weeks later, we&#8217;ve created a draft, and we're deep in revisions when it suddenly emerges that the CTO has different priorities or that the client has decided to focus on a more urgent press release. The draft is put on the back burner. A month after that, the client returns their attention to the piece but decides to rework it so they can attribute it to the CMO instead. Someone else, from the CMO's team, starts editing the draft and wonders what the hell this is and who produced this, because it doesn't align with anything the CMO talks about.</p><p>Sigh.</p><p>These kinds of direction changes happen all the time &#8212; and part of writing as a content team means being flexible enough to roll with the changes that are an inevitable part of organizational life.&nbsp;</p><p>However, having goals spelled out at the start provides a framework that will make everyone's life slightly saner.&nbsp;</p><p>Two tools can help you get closer to sane in your content projects: A <strong>project kickoff meeting</strong> and a well-structured <strong>assignment brief.</strong></p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em>Hello, friend! I&#8217;ve moved my newsletter over to my main website at dylan.tweney.com. To read the rest of this post &#8212; including templates for a project kickoff meeting agenda and for an assignment brief &#8212; please click through to its new home here:</em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg" width="300" height="209" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:209,&quot;width&quot;:300,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;How to start a writing project with a team&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="How to start a writing project with a team" title="How to start a writing project with a team" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dIB1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5563169-3b4f-49ac-8e34-2c63ef2c3fd8_300x209.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/02/28/getting-ready-to-write/">How to start a writing project with a team</a> </h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The POWERS process for effective team writing]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney's six-step method for collaborative content creation]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/tapping-into-your-teams-writing-powers</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/tapping-into-your-teams-writing-powers</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:46:31 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522071820081-009f0129c71c?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHx0ZWFtfGVufDB8fHx8MTcxMjMzNjg1Nnww&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 424w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 848w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1272w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" width="6000" height="4000" 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srcset="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 424w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 848w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1272w, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1622127101134-f50b18d05d2d?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxwb3dlcnN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzEyNjEyNjk2fDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kamranc1000">Kamran Chaudhry</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>Most people think of writing as a solitary activity undertaken by lone geniuses operating under various degrees of inspiration and sheer tenacity. </p><p>But business writing is not usually the expression of a single individual's talent &#8212; it is generally, and often by definition, the expression of an organization's collective intention. And with real-time, collaborative, online editing platforms like Google Docs, collaborative writing has taken on an even more interactive dimension. It's now possible for you to be working on a document at the same time as others, adding text, leaving comments, and changing words &#8212; while other people's variously colored cursors dance through the page doing their own things.</p><p>Collaborative writing unlocks powerful new possibilities and enables organizations to create copy that benefits from the talents and knowledge of a whole team of people. </p><p>It can also be infuriating, confusing, discouraging, and waste much of everyone's time. It can produce flat, bland, safe, bureaucratic copy, and reads like it was written by a committee &#8212; because it was. </p><p>How do we make this work better? How do we maximize the benefit of working together while minimizing the process's frustrating and counterproductive parts? </p><p>Over and over again, I&#8217;ve found that <strong>organizing content creation into stages</strong> is the key. It creates a process your team can follow. Perhaps even more importantly, it provides language for discussing what&#8217;s needed, requesting help, diagnosing what went wrong, and coming up with solutions.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Introducing the POWERS process</strong></h2><p>After some recent brainstorming, I developed a hopefully not-too-dorky acronym to make these stages more memorable: POWERS.</p><ul><li><p>Prepare</p></li><li><p>Organize</p></li><li><p>Write</p></li><li><p>Edit</p></li><li><p>Release</p></li><li><p>Study the results</p></li></ul><p>I&#8217;ve used some variation of this approach, albeit without the acronym, in the last several roles I&#8217;ve been in. It helps clarify what the team needs to do at each stage and how each content team member (or its clients) can best contribute.</p><p>Only the middle step, the actual writing, is an individual exercise. Everything else in this process involves multiple people, in principle, if not in fact. However, if you divide up the writing of a large project into smaller pieces and assign a different part to each writer, then it's also possible for the writing stage to be team-oriented.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em>To read the rest of this post, please click through to its new home on my main website:</em></p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/02/20/tapping-into-your-teams-writing-powers/">The POWERS process for effective team writing</a></h2><p>Dylan Tweney's six-step method for collaborative content creation</p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Writing as a team]]></title><description><![CDATA[What does it mean to write collaboratively, as part of a content team, and how can you get better at it? I'm writing a book, and I want to hear your perspective.]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/writing-as-a-team</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/writing-as-a-team</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 13 Feb 2024 19:11:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P2Qp!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp" width="520" height="520" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/638e288a-1e1c-4e76-885f-72749aa39c8e_1024x1024.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1024,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:520,&quot;bytes&quot;:372056,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Computer-generated image showing many people crowded around a desk, working on laptops while documents are spread on the table between 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stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">This crowded scene is weirdly similar to the VentureBeat newsroom, circa 2015. Computer-generated image by DALL-E.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Hello everyone!</p><p>I&#8217;m starting a new chapter today. Actually, I&#8217;m starting a whole new book.</p><p>For the past six weeks, I&#8217;ve been working on the manuscript of a short book about a topic that has informed most of my career: How to write better.<em> </em>Unlike most writing books, this isn&#8217;t aimed at the individual writer or would-be author. I&#8217;m writing a book aimed at content teams &#8212; groups of writers and editors working together to create something collaboratively.&nbsp;</p><p>In short, this book will be about <em>how to write as a team.</em></p><h2><strong>Writing as a team? What does that mean?</strong></h2><p>I&#8217;ve done a lot of writing and editing as part of collaborative teams. I&#8217;ve been a magazine editor, an online news journalist, a freelance writer, an independent content consultant, an in-house communications chief, and the head of editorial at a PR and marketing agency.&nbsp;</p><p>Throughout my career, I&#8217;ve been part of creating thousands of news stories and blog posts, hundreds of bylines, scores of speeches and presentation talk tracks, dozens of research reports, and many, many other types of content. I&#8217;ve contributed to half a dozen print books as an author or editor, helped launch about a dozen publications and blogs, and participated in half a dozen website redesigns. And I&#8217;ve taken part in a handful of content management system transitions (excruciatingly painful, every one of them).</p><p>In other words, almost all of the content I&#8217;ve helped create has been a collaborative effort. And when you&#8217;re creating content collaboratively, a host of issues crop up that most writing manuals don&#8217;t cover. Issues like these:</p><ul><li><p>The engineer who wants your team&#8217;s help to revise something they&#8217;ve written to make it more publishable, but who can&#8217;t let go of specific technical descriptions that they insist are necessary for accuracy &#8212; which make the copy almost unreadable.</p></li><li><p>The top executive who needs your help writing a speech but is so concerned with specific wording that he&#8217;s still asking you for revisions backstage, shortly before he&#8217;s about to go on.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p></li><li><p>The research firm that keeps revising the results of a survey, forcing you to make endless revisions of the supposedly final report up until the day before it&#8217;s scheduled to be published.</p></li><li><p>The key member of the writing team, brilliant but inconsistent, who decides that they&#8217;ve had enough of your feedback and quits, leaving you to scramble to find someone else to cover their responsibilities.&nbsp;</p></li></ul><p>All of these have happened to me and the teams I&#8217;ve been part of. In fact, every story above has happened to me multiple times!&nbsp;</p><p>In the moment, each of these incidents felt like a crisis. Yet my teams and I delivered the content we needed to, on time and as promised. In some cases what we delivered exceeded expectations, sometimes by far, delivering results that were 10x or 100x the investment our clients had made.&nbsp;</p><p>The teams that produced this work were prepared to handle these unexpected curveballs to varying degrees. Sometimes we had a solid game plan, well-organized project management, and all the resources we needed. Other times? Not so much.</p><h2>&#8230;</h2><p>To continue reading this post, please click over to its new home at dylan.tweney.com:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/02/13/writing-as-a-team/" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IEhI!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IEhI!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IEhI!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IEhI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IEhI!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg" width="300" height="300" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/de0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:300,&quot;width&quot;:300,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Writing as a team&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/02/13/writing-as-a-team/&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Writing as a team" title="Writing as a team" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IEhI!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde0767a0-cbe8-466e-889f-78f8bb54982c_300x300.jpeg 424w, 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stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2024/02/13/writing-as-a-team/">Writing as a team</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Finding a swimming buddy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sometimes you need to rally a crew in order to get yourself going]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/finding-a-swimming-buddy</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/finding-a-swimming-buddy</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 29 Nov 2022 16:08:18 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg" width="1456" height="721" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:721,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:538978,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;photo of a beach and calm water, grey sky, four pilings in the distance, and a swimmer in the middle distance&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="photo of a beach and calm water, grey sky, four pilings in the distance, and a swimmer in the middle distance" title="photo of a beach and calm water, grey sky, four pilings in the distance, and a swimmer in the middle distance" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GSpa!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9614886e-3e7f-4e0c-acde-59204b0f8a0c_2560x1267.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Coyote Point in 2010. My then-ten-year-old daughter, more intrepid than I, was already swimming there when I had only started thinking about it. Photo by Dylan</figcaption></figure></div><p>My first swim in open water, about ten years ago, was in the shallow, protected waters of Coyote Point, a cove halfway up San Francisco Bay. I was nervous, hyperventilating, wearing too much neoprene, and probably didn&#8217;t swim longer than about ten minutes. So how did I get from that point to being able to swim six miles in the open ocean without stopping?</p><p>Practice, practice, practice, as the old joke about Carnegie Hall goes. But first I needed to find a swimming buddy or two.</p><p>After <a href="https://dylan20.substack.com/p/first-swim">that first swim</a>, I knew I wanted more, but I was nervous. I didn't feel comfortable swimming by myself, and I didn't know anyone else who swam in the Bay, apart from a coworker at a previous job. He was notorious for swimming in the San Francisco Bay every morning before work. This guy was a member of the <a href="https://dolphinclub.org/">Dolphin Club</a>, one of two century-old athletic clubs on the shore of Aquatic Park, near Fisherman&#8217;s Wharf, and he was rumored to be a fast and accomplished distance swimmer. At the time I assumed (wrongly) that the Dolphin Club and the <a href="https://serc.com/">South End Rowing Club</a> right next door to it were accessible only to the brave, the strong, and the rich &#8212; and I was none of those. </p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em>This post has moved over to my website, dylan.tweney.com. Please read the rest of it here:</em></p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2022/11/29/finding-a-swimming-buddy/">Finding a swimming buddy</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[First swim]]></title><description><![CDATA[How I got started in this open water craziness, ten years ago]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/first-swim</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/first-swim</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 10 Nov 2022 16:08:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520845071703-ee5ef9e42aca?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=MnwzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw3M3x8dW5kZXJ3YXRlcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjgwNTY5ODA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>You can also <a href="https://anchor.fm/dylan.20/episodes/Waterline-Ep-2-First-swim-e1qbp9e">listen to this post on the Reset Button podcast</a>.</em></p><p>When I first started to swim in the ocean, it was in a shallow, protected cove halfway up the southern reach of San Francisco Bay. Coyote Point is a good twenty-five miles from the open ocean, well inland of the Golden Gate, facing east toward the tame weather and waters of the Bay&#8217;s midsection, exposed to nothing more dangerous on most days than some afternoon wind and the occasional small fishing boat.</p><p>Still, when I first contemplated getting into that water, it seemed as wild and daunting as the English Channel. A light breeze ruffled the limestone-gray surface of the water into little wavelets. But the closer I got to the water the bigger those waves looked: Like chop, or rough water, really. I looked closer and noticed little whitecaps forming on some of them. Waves were even breaking on the beach. Tiny surf, but still surf! I wasn&#8217;t seriously considering going out in these conditions with no boat to protect me, no surfboard to cling to, no floaty to hold me up, was I?</p><p>And who knows what horrors lay under that forbidding surface. The Bay is filled with creatures that are bigger, stronger, faster, and hungrier than I. Seals, sea lions, and sharks are all known to be common in these waters. There have been jellyfish in this cove. Some jellyfish stings can be deadly!</p><p>Never mind that the Coyote Point cove is about two to six feet deep at low tide and no more than ten or fifteen feet deep at the highest tide, that the jellyfish here don&#8217;t have lethal stingers, that the seals and sharks that swim here don&#8217;t bite, and the sea lions don&#8217;t wander this far south. </p><p>I didn&#8217;t know all this the first time I ventured into the water here. For me, I was swimming in (and over) all the mysteries of the deep. And I was doing it alone.</p><p>&#8230;</p><p><em>Read the rest of this post:</em></p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2022/11/10/first-swim/">First swim</a></h2><p>How I got started in this open water craziness, ten years ago</p><p><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/author/dylan/">DYLAN TWENEY</a>  NOV 10, 2022.   6 MIN READ</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jumping into writing like jumping into the sea]]></title><description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m standing on the edge of the San Francisco Bay in San Mateo, my bare toes gripping the blocky concrete ramp installed a few years ago to help windsurfers get in and out of the water. Before me, the greenish water of the Bay is slightly ruffled by a gentle wind, and in the distance, the city of San Francisco twinkles in the morning haze.]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/jumping-into-writing-like-jumping</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/jumping-into-writing-like-jumping</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 04 Nov 2022 15:08:18 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/h_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6abbfdad-4dc8-40ca-9bbd-ae54c640d25f_1738x2835.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg" width="1456" height="786" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:786,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:2039814,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;photo of a beach with grey water, grey sky, and trees in the distance&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="photo of a beach with grey water, grey sky, and trees in the distance" title="photo of a beach with grey water, grey sky, and trees in the distance" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5mcV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F233120cb-4853-4cfd-bcf8-83f2dbd13794_4001x2160.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo of Coyote Point beach by Dylan Tweney.</figcaption></figure></div><p><em><a href="https://anchor.fm/dylan.20/episodes/Waterline-Ep-1-Jumping-into-writing-like-jumping-into-the-sea-e1q7jhv">Listen to the podcast version of this issue</a>.</em></p><p>I&#8217;m standing on the edge of the San Francisco Bay in San Mateo, my bare toes gripping the blocky concrete ramp installed a few years ago to help windsurfers get in and out of the water. Before me, the greenish water of the Bay is slightly ruffled by a gentle wind, and in the distance, the city of San Francisco twinkles in the morning haze.&nbsp;</p><p>To my left, just half a mile away, is the north-south corridor of the 101, an endless vein of commuter traffic connecting San Francisco with Silicon Valley. Next to it, the bright horizontal lines of Meta's new Burlingame campus shine out, a clean, expensive-looking set of buildings on the waterfront, where engineers are creating a world of virtual reality, accessible only to those willing to strap on a headset and trade the real world for one made of polygons.</p><p>To my right is real reality: San Mateo&#8217;s &#8220;wild coast,&#8221; a low bluff of sandstone topped with eucalyptus. At the foot of the bluff, the water I will be swimming in laps against the rocks. Shorebirds mill about in the water: Coots, scoters, and buffleheads, their patterns of black and white seeming to sparkle as they paddle, dive, and resurface. Somewhere behind me, crows caw at each other in the parking lot.</p><p>It&#8217;s March, and a chilly wind blowing across my shoulders reminds me not to stand there too long. I walk a few steps into the water, until it&#8217;s up to my knees, and then bend down, swirling my hands around in it and splashing some on my face. The water&#8217;s about 52 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 11 degrees Celsius &#8212; chilly enough to provide a shock to the system when you first get in.&nbsp;</p><p>My swim watch tells me that my heart rate is 82 beats per minute, reflecting my excitement and the reaction to the cold water. The watch also lets me know that it has acquired a GPS signal and is prepared for me to start my swim. Its screen says, simply: <em>Ready</em>.</p><p>I take a few deep breaths, and dive in.</p><p></p><p>&#8230;</p><p>Read the rest of this post:</p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2022/11/04/jumping-into-writing-like-jumping/">Jumping into writing like jumping into the sea</a></h2>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[November chill]]></title><description><![CDATA[Dreamforce, Zen monks, and swimming as the water gets colder]]></description><link>https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/november-chill</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://newsletter.tweney.com/p/november-chill</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Tweney]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 19 Nov 2019 16:20:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg" width="1456" height="1132" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1132,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:639117,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1nuC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2038dd0d-5f5e-41cc-8b7e-ef8d3c8dd271_1554x1208.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Welcome to Dreamforce</figcaption></figure></div><p>It&#8217;s November, and in the seasonal ebb and return of the San Francisco economy that means it&#8217;s time for Dreamforce, the annual tradeshow hosted by <a href="http://Salesforce.com">Salesforce.com</a>. It&#8217;s one of several annual conferences large enough not only to occupy all of the Moscone Center&#8217;s three massive buildings, but to spill out into and take over the adjacent street, occupying a full city block of Howard Street. As a demonstration of corporate power&#8217;s dominance over civic power in the 21st century, you don&#8217;t get much more vivid than this: A heavily used street is closed down and given over to private use, traffic is redirected at great inconvenience and cost, and the police are called in to protect and preserve this now-private space for the duration of the weeklong conference. Plus there is most of a week before given over to setup and a few days after for teardown.</p><p>In this privatized city block, Salesforce will erect pavilions, roll out Astroturf, set up food kiosks and stages for entertainment &#8212; and all for the benefit of its paying customers. Last year there was even a private &#8220;park,&#8221; with temporary trees and greenery, with signage that echoed the National Park system&#8217;s. At a time when the real National Parks are being starved of operating budgets and their irreplaceable natural wonders are being reconsidered as concessions to be developed by the gods of capital &#8212; hotels! amusement park rides! Wi-Fi! &#8212; the irony of a miniature &#8220;National Park&#8221; popping up in San Francisco, but designated for the exclusive use of Salesforce customers, struck me as more than a little ironic.</p><p>Yes, Dreamforce brings dollars to the city, and to its hotels and restaurants in particular. Such is the deal: Give us temporary use of your public spaces and in return we will pay you, while those who are paying us will also pay you.&nbsp;</p><p>At least it&#8217;s temporary, and the expenses (extra policing, traffic control, etc.) are paid for by Salesforce, so unlike, say, a publicly funded sports arena there is no economic hangover after the circus leaves town.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!L4J7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c798650-1ec6-4c48-b6ef-d5d51632fde8_906x1208.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!L4J7!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c798650-1ec6-4c48-b6ef-d5d51632fde8_906x1208.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!L4J7!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c798650-1ec6-4c48-b6ef-d5d51632fde8_906x1208.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!L4J7!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c798650-1ec6-4c48-b6ef-d5d51632fde8_906x1208.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!L4J7!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c798650-1ec6-4c48-b6ef-d5d51632fde8_906x1208.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">A view of Dreamforce 2019</figcaption></figure></div><p>&#8230;</p><p>Read the rest of this post:</p><h2><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/2019/11/19/november-chill-2/">November chill</a></h2><p>Dreamforce, Zen monks, and swimming as the water gets colder</p><p><a href="https://dylan.tweney.com/author/dylan/">DYLAN TWENEY</a>.  NOV 19, 2019.  5 MIN READ</p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>