On the topic of continuity

As some people might know, the posts on this blog are translations from another blog, on which I have been posting a daily post for almost ten years.
And from over there, I can tell you that there are days when you think it's over now. After more than 3000 consecutive days of blog posts, it's over - today, I simply cannot make it.
But strangely enough, it's not that way. For it turns out that after all, it not so much time one has to steal to put some words together to be at least an excuse for a post to can keep continuity.
I think it is the same with so with many things. If you are decisive that something will probably be possible, then it might not be much that is needed to keep a promise to do it. The hard thing is finding the right things to promise oneself to do. And to decide that it should be possible. The rest actually comes almost by itself.
(Promising that there will be a daily translated item on this blog is quite another thing, though - there are far too few post on the other blog sufficiently valuable to justify translation).
(Translated from Noget om kontinuitet, originally published April 23rd, 2017)

Promises made to readers

Image courtesy of pixabay / MiraDeShazer

I saw a very interesting video the other day, where professor Adam Grant visits author Daniel Pink in the latter's backyard, and they speak on the topic of "writing books". A particularly exciting sequence comes towards the end, where Daniel Pink talks about an editor who had commented a passage of 4-5,000 words that do not quite work, by asking Pink consider what promise he actually makes to his readers.
And then it becomes interesting how Pink reflects on the question:

I'm asking the reader to say: oh, no matter, what you are doing in your life, just stop. Please stop, spend how ever long it takes, 20 minutes, half an hour, with me, because it is more important than anything else you're doing - more important than doing your work, more important than exercising, more important than spending time with your family - just spend that time with me, and it will be a better use of your time. And you're like "whoa, wait a second, I'm actually making the promise that that's the case, I better deliver on that promise."

It is very beautifully and accurately put. Because that's what it's all about: in this world where time is often regarded as our most precious resource, we are wasting people's resources if we make them read something for a span of time they could have used for something better.

It is one thing that all those of us who carry an unhatched author inside, should think carefully about.
As well as, for that matter, something that one as a blogger should keep in mind. If we haven't got something important to say, we should remain silent. Alternatively refrain from wondering why no one reads what we write.
(Translated from Løftet til læserne)