I'm going to watch your move to bi-weekly carefully. I've pondered doing that, too. The weekly writing has its advantages and disadvantages. It has the paradoxical quality of focusing attention -- I see many topics for possible posts just arise in regular ol' experience -- but the pace doesn't allow for much careful development and growth of ideas.
Maybe I'm a slow thinker. Certainly a nibbler and ruminator.
I always enjoy your posts, and I look for them on Sundays. I'll have to settle for half the number, enriched of course by your increased attention!
Deleting my Twitter account today and not planning to create another social media account. Still interested in audio reads but might just try the embedded Substack player rather than try to branch out into another portal. All of which is to say, also reclaiming my attention.
For me sticking to once weekly still feels right. The barrage of stupidity never ends so I always have something to write about.
We must have crossed our mental streams when I sent the email about you going bi-weekly or monthly. I think it's great you're doing this so that ultimately you can do more of what you want and not less.
The text messages back and forth are awesome, and I felt like you were channeling some Michael Estrin Situation Normal action there. You easily could have kept going, but that would have stolen your time! There are some amazing white hat hacker YouTube videos online flipping the script on these guys.
Lastly, thanks for mentioning the Lunar Awards!!! I'm really pumped for the first award season to start. 🏅🏅🏅
Gasp! Tom Ulysses Aristotle Pendergast! I can't believe you engaged with that scammer!! Tsk Tsk. They will definitely have a stronger pitch next time. If they start texting you pictures of snow and bluebirds and talking to you about their mothers, you may already be in serious trouble.
I read somewhere that the most recent scams involve calls from "panicked relatives". The voices are created by AI to sound like people you know. This info was in my NPR newsletter, but the article link was broken, so I didn't share it. Messed up, though.
Excellent to hear you're diving back into your book! I love books. If I can be of any help in the amateur editor capacity, please let me know. And thanks for the divider shout out. It looks great!
I pondered the frequency question carefully and came up with a post every two weeks for essentially the same reasons you gave here: so I'm not spending all my personal writing time generating Substack posts, but I'm spending enough time to create quality posts at a reasonable clip. I haven't tried any other schedule so I can't compare that way, but I am happy with the amount of time I'm spending on these posts.
Good luck with your shift! I'm sure it will work out swimmingly. (Don't forget: you can always ask some of those single women in Miami who text you if they're up for contributing a post here and there...)
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Tom Pendergast
I’ve wondered how much time scammers have to devote to their craft. Is it a full time endeavor or just a side gig? Do they have tools to manage the scams? Will AI open the door for more scammers of this type?
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Tom Pendergast
I had a series of scam calls wanting to buy a house I no longer owned. Usually something like “We’ll pay cash for your property at xxx address” I always reply “great I’ll met you there” and never go. The calls eventually stopped. The guy who bought the house was a pretty big guy.
I had this brilliant idea a few months ago to do an Instagram thing where I'd post a series of really creepy pictures of dark figures, captioned with scam texts. I posted a few before I realized it was not even remotely worth the effort, and also I more or less hate Instagram. But my point is: I can relate! In the course of that (very short lived) project, I led a few of the scammers on to try to get good caption options. But it's a black hole. Most of these are probably not even human -- or anyway, they won't be, once LLM AI's completely take over that line of work.
I’m continually examining and reflecting on this element of my Substack. For a while I was posting two stories per week, and the quality of the work suffered. It burned me out, too, and I wasn’t able to branch out as often to plug away at side projects.
Once weekly feels right for me - for right now. My time feels balanced. There’s nothing wrong with changing our process as we figure out what makes the most sense for us. And, who knows, I may scale it back even more as time goes on. But I know exactly where you’re coming from.
Thanks for the thoughtful post! I look forward to reading more of your work!
Thanks for the nod, Tom. I'm all for choosing a publishing pace and cadence that allows me to write a piece while also giving me the flexibility to absorb life's inevitable interruptions.
I loved this Tom and thanks for the book recommendations! Ironically your post grabbed my attention but Im glad it did. As always I enjoyed it and it's also something I'm grappling with and have written about (will send you). Books I enjoyed on this topic was Deep Work by Cal Newport and the Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner, The molecule of More as well as Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate.
Love this! Loved stolen focus. I force myself to only do one Substack a week as was finding that I could do more yet it was taking away from other things I wanted to finish.
Tom, I interacted like you did for the hell of it and then “she” wanted to come to Philly to meet me. Gulp.
Good luck with the book!
I'm going to watch your move to bi-weekly carefully. I've pondered doing that, too. The weekly writing has its advantages and disadvantages. It has the paradoxical quality of focusing attention -- I see many topics for possible posts just arise in regular ol' experience -- but the pace doesn't allow for much careful development and growth of ideas.
Maybe I'm a slow thinker. Certainly a nibbler and ruminator.
I always enjoy your posts, and I look for them on Sundays. I'll have to settle for half the number, enriched of course by your increased attention!
Deleting my Twitter account today and not planning to create another social media account. Still interested in audio reads but might just try the embedded Substack player rather than try to branch out into another portal. All of which is to say, also reclaiming my attention.
For me sticking to once weekly still feels right. The barrage of stupidity never ends so I always have something to write about.
We must have crossed our mental streams when I sent the email about you going bi-weekly or monthly. I think it's great you're doing this so that ultimately you can do more of what you want and not less.
The text messages back and forth are awesome, and I felt like you were channeling some Michael Estrin Situation Normal action there. You easily could have kept going, but that would have stolen your time! There are some amazing white hat hacker YouTube videos online flipping the script on these guys.
Lastly, thanks for mentioning the Lunar Awards!!! I'm really pumped for the first award season to start. 🏅🏅🏅
Good luck with the novel! I'll look forward to seeing your essays in my inbox every two weeks!
Gasp! Tom Ulysses Aristotle Pendergast! I can't believe you engaged with that scammer!! Tsk Tsk. They will definitely have a stronger pitch next time. If they start texting you pictures of snow and bluebirds and talking to you about their mothers, you may already be in serious trouble.
I read somewhere that the most recent scams involve calls from "panicked relatives". The voices are created by AI to sound like people you know. This info was in my NPR newsletter, but the article link was broken, so I didn't share it. Messed up, though.
Excellent to hear you're diving back into your book! I love books. If I can be of any help in the amateur editor capacity, please let me know. And thanks for the divider shout out. It looks great!
I pondered the frequency question carefully and came up with a post every two weeks for essentially the same reasons you gave here: so I'm not spending all my personal writing time generating Substack posts, but I'm spending enough time to create quality posts at a reasonable clip. I haven't tried any other schedule so I can't compare that way, but I am happy with the amount of time I'm spending on these posts.
Good luck with your shift! I'm sure it will work out swimmingly. (Don't forget: you can always ask some of those single women in Miami who text you if they're up for contributing a post here and there...)
I’ve wondered how much time scammers have to devote to their craft. Is it a full time endeavor or just a side gig? Do they have tools to manage the scams? Will AI open the door for more scammers of this type?
Anyway, I think you should give Emily a call.
I had a series of scam calls wanting to buy a house I no longer owned. Usually something like “We’ll pay cash for your property at xxx address” I always reply “great I’ll met you there” and never go. The calls eventually stopped. The guy who bought the house was a pretty big guy.
I had this brilliant idea a few months ago to do an Instagram thing where I'd post a series of really creepy pictures of dark figures, captioned with scam texts. I posted a few before I realized it was not even remotely worth the effort, and also I more or less hate Instagram. But my point is: I can relate! In the course of that (very short lived) project, I led a few of the scammers on to try to get good caption options. But it's a black hole. Most of these are probably not even human -- or anyway, they won't be, once LLM AI's completely take over that line of work.
I’m continually examining and reflecting on this element of my Substack. For a while I was posting two stories per week, and the quality of the work suffered. It burned me out, too, and I wasn’t able to branch out as often to plug away at side projects.
Once weekly feels right for me - for right now. My time feels balanced. There’s nothing wrong with changing our process as we figure out what makes the most sense for us. And, who knows, I may scale it back even more as time goes on. But I know exactly where you’re coming from.
Thanks for the thoughtful post! I look forward to reading more of your work!
Thanks for the nod, Tom. I'm all for choosing a publishing pace and cadence that allows me to write a piece while also giving me the flexibility to absorb life's inevitable interruptions.
Good Luck
I loved this Tom and thanks for the book recommendations! Ironically your post grabbed my attention but Im glad it did. As always I enjoyed it and it's also something I'm grappling with and have written about (will send you). Books I enjoyed on this topic was Deep Work by Cal Newport and the Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner, The molecule of More as well as Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate.
Love this! Loved stolen focus. I force myself to only do one Substack a week as was finding that I could do more yet it was taking away from other things I wanted to finish.
Good call on finishing the novel.