Everybody's Got a...Yak?
I feel like I've caught myself shaving the yak of late. I just learned this turn of phrase checks watch 13 minutes ago, but it resonates. And when something resonates, I write.
Does that mean this letter is more yak shaving? Crap.
I've made little progress on The Spirit of a Galaxy game. I am slowly writing a shorter essay about Skyward Sword and Outer Wilds. And yet I find myself trapped inside the echo chamber of my cacophonous brain internally yakking about memberships and business plans and how to launch a thing to a group of people I know nothing about. Of course, Craig Mod has, in a way, written about this.1
Perhaps the most unintuitively dangerous pitfall of running a successful membership program is that of trapping yourself in a lambent cage of your own design...
What I mean: You start a membership program with certain goals in mind — producing a book or film or writing a newsletter for example — but because the program is successful, you twist yourself to be entirely membership focused. You’ve gone from being an artist to someone who “does” a membership program, which often involves a dominant meta-component of how to successfully run one. Which can be good or bad depending on your aims.
For me, it would be bad.
I am bending myself backward—driving myself batty really—thinking about this Patreon. I'm losing sight of what I am actually here to create—Essays (written or video). I'm losing the North Star.
For newsletter creators, having a fixed point on the horizon is a filtering function. If there’s a straight line from a topic you want to write about to your North Star, draft it. If it’s a detour, a meandering stroll, avoid it like a chicken salad on a cheap flight to Vegas. That’s easier said than done.
Writers are so close to the source material, steeped and stewed in the details, that it’s hard for them to take a step back and see the forest for the trees. They get distracted, diving into rabbit holes and pulling on threads that lead themselves and their readers away from the anchor point. As passages become less meaningful, the writer loses motivation to keep going and readers lose interest.
Justin Duke wrote this in regards to newsletters, but it is applicable to any creative endeavor; probably applicable to anything, really.
At my joby-job, we promise to help clients see both the forest and the trees, yet here I am wandering around mental redwoods trying to grasp the shape of my creativity. I've taken a detour and lost sight of the whole purpose of this newsletter and what motivates me to create. I am sure all of this yak shaving will end up helping the final product, but I have spent too much time on it lately and not enough on the actual making of things.
All right. The yak is shaved. It's 6:00 AM and that means it is time to go cook the ladies breakfast and help them get out of the door for work and school. Then I'll get back to locking in on the essays. The membership will come in due time.
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It's where I learned the yak shaving bit to begin with! ↩
This letter is one block from the newsletter Memory Card by Max Roberts. Thoughts? Send me an email at max@maxfrequency.net.
Max is the writer and producer behind Max Frequency. cultivate and curate curiosity—both for himself and for others—by delighting in the details and growing greatness from small beginnings.
He's written a rich history and dive on the making of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II, celebrated the 15th anniversary of Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the voice behind its hype, and examined how Zelda "stole" Fortnite's best mechanic.
Memory Card is a real-ish time, raw, drip feed newsletter of his creative process for telling these stories. It’s how The Thing™ gets made.
It's all powered by Max Frequency and patrons.
Wanna see The Thing™? Check it out on YouTube. Read it on The Blog.