When A Good Plan Goes Awry

What happens when a seemingly good idea turns out to be a really bad one? For me, it turned into a total loss of momentum in writing. Allow me to explain.

Back in March of this year, I was posting to Substack daily, until March 12, 2026. When, after a conversation with my productivity coach and then some back and forth conversation with Grok, I decided that maybe I was posting too much, too often.

I went through a strategic overhaul of my posting methodology. This included changing the frequency of my posts to twice a week, and curtailing the subject of the posts to just two major categories. I started off feeling good about this chance, but that feeling did not last.

After just a couple of weeks, I started to second guess the content I was writing, overanalyzing every detail, trying to make each post “perfect” so that it was worth my cutting back to only two times a week. Looking back, that was a huge mistake.

If you have read any of my previous posts, you know that I love to write. Much of the research that I have done on the art of writing lives and dies by 2 rules, write a crappy first draft, then rewrite and revise until the final draft is what you want it to be. I figured that is what I had to be doing with my Substack content.

What happened? I stopped writing daily and filled the time with other things. I spent more time brooding over my posts than actually publishing anything. The only daily writing was my journaling where I consistently mentioned how much I missed writing every day.

Recently, it smacked me in the face like a dodge ball, all the research and reading that was telling me to write the crappy first draft then rewrite and revise, were all related to writing books. I was reading authors that have published many more books and short stories than I can count.

And while their methods may be the best for a larger work like a short story or book, I find it overboard for posting content on a blog, like my Substack. My blog was supposed to be a place for me to be raw, honest, and real. I wanted to use the space as a way to connect with my readers in a very conversational style, about all the things I have been working on, thinking about, or feeling.

I don’t think it’s possible to be real, raw, conversational if I am writing, then rewriting, before posting. If someone can tell me how that’s authentic, feel free

I am certainly not abandoning the work of multiple drafts and revisions to make some content pristine. However, as for my Substack/blog, going forward, that’s not how I want it to work.

I want to post daily, whatever the Lord puts on my heart or whatever happens to be floating around in my brain. This forum is honestly for me to process my thoughts and ideas. But I also love to share what I think with others, in case what I have to say is useful or, at the very least, entertaining.

So, I am going back to daily posting. Some might be long, some might be short. I am going to post what’s happening in my head; things I am doing, issues I am struggling with, and anything else I need to work through or feel like sharing.

My posts will be raw, as before. The only thing I will do is make sure that spelling and grammar check out and that it flows well. Beyond that, most of the daily posts will be off-the-cuff.

I will also be posting some other content, stuff that is more polished and put together, but for now, it’s going to be raw, real, and unapologetically me.

I hope you will continue to take this ride with me. I love sharing with you and hope you find some value in what I post. Thanks for hanging in there.

—Daniel