Attention Economy 101

If there's one thing I've learned over the last few years it's that someone's attention can only be split so many ways. 

Case in point, I know I haven't been giving this newsletter the attention it deserves the last few weeks. This has mostly been through a combination of trying to line things up to put things in the newsletter and just being incredibly busy. 

At my last count, I have 6 projects on my plate right now of which I'm an editor on. All of these projects are in varying stages of completion. 

In addition to this, I also have my own creative projects so it's no wonder my attention is as fractured as it is. 

You can only take in so much information and you can only output so much information a day. This is becoming truer still in an age of constant news, heinous and ridiculous power structures and Trump memes. 

Cut back, cut back before it's too late. Trim your RSS feeds, cull that podcast subscription list, use Twitter lists, be selective about what makes your attention grade and what doesn't. This isn't to say 'build a stronger filter bubble'. One can consume and read balanced media sources without becoming lost in them. Every single thing online is scrambling for your attention, whether you know it or not. But it's up to you to be the guardian of what gets in and what doesn't. 

 

So, with that 'get off my lawn' rant over, I've been writing up one-page snippets of script based on the works of Sergey Kolesov over at this link for about a year now. Next week it will be one year exactly. I may stop there, or carry on for a few more weeks just so I can say I have a page of script for every picture at this link. 

Needless to say that after doing work on various editing projects, writing one page of script, planning out a schedule for the next week and running for about an hour and a half, this newsletter has gotten short shrift. But, once the Culture Sludge project dies down that should kind of rebalance itself. Needless to say there are some ideas I have for the newsletter that I'll be putting into practice once I have the mental bandwidth to do so. 

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With all that said, I recently sat down (virtually) with Ryan K Lindsay and we had an in depth discussion about the writer/editor relationship, how that works, what it means, etc. 

The first part of that discussion will run in Ryan's newsletter. If you aren't already subscribed to it, here you go. The second part will run in this newsletter next week. 

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Only three links for you this week:

- A great interview with Daniel Warren Johnson on his new Image series Extremity. 
- Joss Whedon on Buffy at 20. 
- 'London Bridge is down' - the secret plan for what happens after the Queen's death (I'm not a Royalist by any stretch but this article is interesting). 

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Remember to subscribe to Ryan's newsletter (you should have already) and I'll be back next week with the second part of that discussion.

Until then...