I’m Arun Venkatesan, and this is the arun.is newsletter, where I share my current obsessions, inspiration from around the web, behind-the-scenes content, and more. 

In this week’s issue:

• How a book got me out of a funk
• An update on my book

This weekend, I was looking back at what I had accomplished the past month. Yes, I had published my essay about my desk setup. Yet, I felt an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The kind of feeling I’ve felt before when I realized the mid-term exam for a class I rarely attended was happening the very next morning. It’s a feeling of dread, followed by self-hatred, followed by denial. 

You see. I publically committed to writing a book — a book about designing and developing a personal website as I have done with arun.is.

That was a month ago.

Although I had filled my project tracker with distribution strategies, marketing copy for a hypothetical landing page, and ideas for the art style, I had fewer than 2,000 words of a draft written. Not only did the numbers speak for themselves, I could feel the truth. Absent was the enormous momentum I feel when I’m consistently working on something day-in-day-out. 

As I sulked, I popped my headphones in my ear and hit play on my podcast player. An episode of The Knowledge Project began, and I heard the familiar voice of Seth Godin. He discussed with Shane, the interviewer, his new book, The Practice. I was drawn in so deep that soon after, I was listening to a few more recent podcasts Seth had been on, including Design Matters. 

As I listened, I felt a palpable feeling of the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach clearing away. I had found the answer. I immediately bought the Kindle version of The Practice and devoured it in a day. I came out highlighting nearly the whole book just as Debbie, the host of Design Matters, said she had.

The book is less a book and more a collection of blog posts or stories woven together with a common theme. The most impactful words for me were “Ship creative work. On a schedule. Without attachment and without reassurance.” 

At the end of three-plus hours of listening to podcasts and a day of reading, I had realized what I was missing. No. It wasn’t creative confidence. It wasn’t a mountain of research that I hadn’t yet done. 

I was missing a practice.

Instead of first worrying about putting together an outline or a landing page, I have decided to start writing the book. Sure it may be risky, but it’s the only way I see to maintain momentum.

To keep me accountable, I’m maintaining a tweet thread with daily updates on how many minutes I spend and how many words I write. As of now, I have a 4-day streak and have written a total of 5,526 words. Check out the thread if you are interested in the particular topics I’ve written about so far.

This newsletter issue may have been a bit more personal than expected. Perhaps it didn’t have as many interesting links to others’ work as usual. However, I am sharing my story with you so that perhaps you could learn from it or reply with your own experience. 

Stay curious,
Arun Venkatesan