How I Write Each Week

Week #13

Hello! I’m Aaron Kardell. In this Sunday newsletter, I pick one random topic weekly to go deep on and have some disparate quick hits at the end.

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As a subscriber, you know that I’m trying to write every Sunday. I’ve published every week since I wrote “Just Start Writing…” on October 23rd, excluding Christmas day.

Some weeks are easy. A life experience during the week sparks something, and I know by Thursday what I plan to write about over the weekend.

This week was not one of those weeks. I was busy. I had a few thoughts on things I wanted to write about. I especially want to provide some updates on the Puerto Rico property. But ultimately, I didn’t feel like I had enough content or time to invest to get to the level of quality I wanted.

So, this week, I’m just going to write a little bit about my process of writing. Writing helps me better think through some things I’m working through, and maybe putting my process on paper can help you get started if you’re feeling stuck.

For inspiration on future topics, I have quite a few drafts queued up in Substack. 90% are just a title to spark a thought of something I want to write about later. Occasionally I have some bullets. And sometimes, I have a rough draft worked through, but I’m just not ready to publish.

I also have two multi-purpose drafts: Quick Hits Place Holders and Random HomeSpotter Notes. I draw from the first of those many weeks.

I’ve surfaced a draft I’ve wanted to write about just about as often as I’ve drawn inspiration from the week prior.

Once I start on a topic for the week, I usually see it through and publish. However, I decided not to publish a final draft altogether once. I had written 700 words, but instead, I distilled the topic down to <150 words and threw it in a quick hit bullet like the ones you see at the end of this.

After I’ve written things up, I usually do two things as a final edit. First, I throw the draft into Grammarly to get suggestions on how to make it better. Second, I preview the draft on mobile. Proofing on a different screen than you wrote on helps to see it in a different light. Rarely, I will also send the draft to others for review.

Then I head over to Unsplash or Pixabay to grab a photo to use as the social preview photo. After I hit send in Subtack, I decide if and where I will publish elsewhere. Most weeks, I post on Twitter. I less frequently post on Facebook or LinkedIn, and only if I deem it a topic of a more personal nature or in the category of startup or business advice. On LinkedIn, I have twice re-published what I’ve written as a LinkedIn article to drive broader distribution (instead of just posting a link to the newsletter).

And that’s about it. It’s pretty straightforward.

If you want a peek inside my drafts folder, here are some of the titles that might just become future posts:

• Some of the Money Mistakes I Made Post-Acquisition

• Why Startups Should Be More Acquisitive

• Focus Creates Excellence

• When to Hire From Other Startups

• So You Want a Technical Co-Founder

• To Raise Or Not to Raise

• Take An Interest in Her Interests

• I Tried to Buy Wordle

• Mentorship

• On Drinking Less

• Normalizing Therapy

• Jesus Was For The Marginalized

• A Different Approach to a Startup Studio

• My Highest ROI Investment Ever

• Surviving WFIO Moments

• Lifestyle Businesses Are Underrated

• On Becoming a Taylor Swift Fanboy

• Co-Founder Or Not?

• Three Business Cards

• Failed Attempts at a Trading Bot

If you want to request that I write about one of the above sooner, please reply to this email and let me know.

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This Week’s Quick Hits

• In reaction to last week’s post about management, someone shared that Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?, by Harvard Business Review, was life-changing. Also, Jamie Thingelstad recently wrote about Organizational Dissonance, and I found it thought-provoking and well-written.

• I was traveling today and was touched that my daughter missed me enough to text me. Turns out it maybe wasn’t me that she missed. But it was still a good reminder that a consistent weekly tradition can make an impact:

  

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash