Behind the Scenes of Footnotes (Plus Tweets of the Week)

Bonus post for paid subscribers.

Hi there.

I was reflecting on a few pieces I’ve written lately, and I thought it might be interesting to share some of my writing process with Footnotes.

If you’re not interested, scroll on. Below you’ll find some tweets of the week that made me chuckle.

Ideas and brainstorming

How do I come up with stories? Ideas tend to hit when I’m free writing or out running, walking, or bike riding. When I get a chance, I quickly jot down these thoughts in a dedicated space in my journal.

• I use elements of bullet journaling to keep my pages structured. That includes an idea log for Footnotes which I revisit when I’m feeling stuck or unsure what to cover next.

Stay Focused

• Some ideas percolate for months or years before I try to draft them.

  • For example, a piece I wrote about John Parker’s Once a Runner pulls from initial ideas jotted down back in 2015. I was chatting with friends about the nihilist aspects of running over beers after a long run in the Marin headlands, sitting on the grass in front the Pelican Inn. That night I started sketching thoughts in a Word doc. Eventually it evolved into a book review.

I keep ideas alive by revisiting them from time to time with loose writing on the theme, which I index in my journal to thread together disparate entries.

Grand strategy with a robot

Every quarter or so, I use an agent I’ve created on ChatGPT to do some “grand strategy” brainstorming. I upload a few recent pieces, recalibrate the agent’s instructions based on my changing interests, and prompt it to think big picture about the newsletter.

Often, I give it a huge goal like helping me grow to 100,000 subscribers:

I’ve never gotten a complete essay idea from these GPT jam sessions. But, the collective knowledge of the machine mind synthesizes ideas I don’t think I would have considered. It elevates directions much in the same way as brainstorming with another person or a group.

How do I research?

The rest of this post dives into research, drafting, editing rituals—and the 4,200 words I had to kill. Subscribe to read on.