thesis
i have spent a while now writing short reflections here, a post at a time, each one a single thought i wanted to get out of my head and onto the page. that format has been good to me, but some ideas do not fit in a single sitting. they need room to unfold, one piece building on the next. so i am starting to write long-form, books and guides released a chapter at a time, and this is the quiet heads-up before the first one arrives.
context
almost everything on this site so far has been short-form, a reflection, a lesson, or a technical note i wanted to remember. that suits most of what i think about, because most of what i think about fits in a page or two. but a few ideas keep circling back, and every time i try to squeeze one into a single post i end up cutting the parts that actually matter. those are the ideas that need a different shape. i have quietly been writing one of them for a while, and it has grown well past the point where a post could ever hold it.
argument
why a book and not more posts
a post is a snapshot. it captures one thought at one moment, and that is exactly why it works for most of what i write. a book is a structure. it lets an idea build in sequence, where each chapter leans on the one before it and sets up the one after. some things only make sense laid out in order, slowly, with the connective tissue left in instead of cut for length. when i kept trimming an idea to fit a post and kept losing the part that mattered most, that was the signal it belonged somewhere longer.
a chapter at a time
i am not going to drop a finished book in one go. i am going to release it the same way i do most things, little by little, one chapter at a time as each one is ready. that cadence keeps the work sustainable and keeps me honest, because a chapter that has to stand on its own cannot hide behind the ones around it. it is the same reason i keep telling myself to stick with it on any long effort, and the same reason i try to leave room to breathe between pushes instead of sprinting until i break.
what i am not saying yet
i am deliberately not going to tell you what the first one is about, at least not yet. part of that is plain superstition, the sense that naming a thing too early and too loudly is a good way to talk myself out of finishing it. part of it is that i would rather let the work introduce itself when it is ready than oversell an idea i am still shaping. so for now the only promise is the form. longer pieces, built to be read in order, arriving one chapter at a time. the subject can wait until the first chapter is able to speak for itself.
tension or counterpoint
the honest doubt is obvious. announcing something before a single chapter is finished is a good way to look foolish, and plenty of people announce books that never arrive. so why say anything at all before the work is done? because for me the announcement is the commitment. saying it out loud, in public, is exactly what makes me follow through, and the small risk of looking foolish is part of the point, since it raises the cost of quietly giving up. i would rather be on the hook for this than let it stay a someday idea forever.
closing
nothing is live yet. this is just the soft knock before anything ships, a way to say out loud where this is going so that i actually follow through. when the first chapter is ready it will show up in a new long-form section of the site, and i will point to it from here. until then, this is me telling on myself, on purpose, so the work gets done. back to it.
further reading
- serial (literature), the long tradition of releasing a longer work one installment at a time
- commonplace book, the old habit of keeping a personal book of principles worth living by
