Pitting the mundane against the incredible is no contest—we’ll choose the incredible every time. “Incredible” just sounds better, doesn’t it? Of course we’d want that over something common, ordinary, or everyday.
Wouldn’t we?
Lately, I’ve been busy behind the scenes working on a new service to offer Medium writers. I’ll write more on it later when I officially start promoting it, but it involves me compiling the Medium backup HTMLs into a single readable PDF. Before I can launch a promotion, I’ve got to work out the mundane details of how to make it happen, what to price it, and how to make it appealing. Common stuff, but critical. This stage also involves reaching out to a trusted group of friends and peers to practice and test things—people who aren’t afraid to give feedback will say straight up if they think it’s awesome or terrible.
Everything seemed to be going well…until I tried to talk about it.
What’s In The Name?
Talking about this…thing seems impossible. It has no name, I lamented! While working on my third practice round, it became clear how necessary the name was. Was it a compilation? A journal? An index? What to call this thing??
Riffing ideas off a friend late at night, we ran into some issues. Indices are done alphabetically, not chronologically. Journal and compilation didn’t sound right. Working through other words, my friend, Sturg started throwing out ideas:
Project Chronos: Medium Edition
The Medium Almanac Project
The Medium Catalogue Feature Project
Each of his ideas sounded amazing. Too amazing. It wasn’t all that grand, I argued. Those names sound so epic, whereas reality fell tragically short of that same elegance and wonder. But then, he insisted further:
You've got to make your project sound important so that you can make it big. 😉
And then I heard my own words mirrored back at me…
Go Big Or Stay Small
A few posts ago, I had come across the idea that going big was better than trying to stay reasonable. For people like me, the idea of something being impossible or grand is exciting and highly motivating. Even if we know we can’t actually get to the goal, there’s a lot more fuel on that fire than going after something smaller and easier to reach.
Sturg was absolutely right. I’ve got to make it big. Even if this doesn’t end up being the path to riches, underplaying it could be fatal. My ADHD brain was watching, after all. I have to make it a show worth sticking around for to keep moving forward.
The Medium Catalogue Feature Project It Is
Be on the lookout for the promo article, as it will have this same name! I figure I might as well own the journey, no matter what happens. Make it big, make it grand, and keep moving forward until reality matches the “bigness” of my aspirations.
Life’s just more fun that way, don’t you think?
Until next time, remember to follow yourself, always!
Hmm... Monster Almanac, maybe? Or are you going to be including posts outside the Alley and Cafe?
Also, more urgently, I got a random email (apparently from you) titled, 'Is This Goodbye?'. It seemed to be the second in a series of warnings - except, I never got the first one, so... is it you?
And if yes, what am I supposed to do here lol
Amen to make it big or stay small. XD I need to remind myself of that too.