Warriors rise to challenges

Theo Hemmingway working on next posting

Reading the announcement gave me a frisson of fear. So I knew it was a good idea. Scary, but good. Good precisely because it was scary (Jeez! I'm starting to sound like a bad Hemmingway parody.)

The challenge is to write a blog posting (not just link something or publish a picture of your lunch, but write something) once a day for a week. The challenge is being organized by Winnie Kao, who works for Seth Godin. Seth is all about "shipping", meaning sending the product of your efforts to someone else; delivering, publishing.

As some readers of this blog might know, in the distant past I once had a weekly newspaper column, for two years (and later for a few months at another newspaper). If you've never done it before, you have no idea how much pressure it is (mostly pressure you put on yourself) to produce clever, publishable (what your editor considers publishable) material every week by deadline.

I've never done daily.

But I'll tell you why I want to try it. I read blogs on a feed reader. That means I download blogs onto my phone in the morning, and I read them during the day when I get the time (typically while commuting on public transport, or while eating lunch). Every morning, without fail, there is a posting from Seth Godin. Every day. That means I think about him, and about the things he's thinking, every day. That's an amazing presence. That's powerful.

It also means that he's gotten very good at short posts. That man can say in three short paragraphs what most people need ten for.

So, here it is that I very publicly commit myself. Starting tomorrow (Monday, 19 January) I will post each day for one week.

Banzai!