Writing is hard, but it is also central to how I process the world. And when the world is such a hot mess, trying to capture any of it on paper (or electrons on a screen) seems like a fool’s errand. And so it has been for my blogging for the past few years. Add on to that the need to write professionally to raise awareness of our company, and the final marathon to finish my book, Designing For Playful Engagement in Museums, and it seems impossible. I toyed with the idea of mothballing the blog entirely, but just couldn’t bring myself to cancel the domain registration.
Luckily, Seb Chan came to town, and in between dining, catching up, and watching him give a talk at MIT where he DJed five different slide decks while presenting, we talked about shared history, which includes blogging. He talked about how positive the feedback had been to his newsletter Fresh and New(er), and how much high-quality interaction it generated, and I thought, “That’s what I miss!” So I read a bunch of articles about newsletter platforms and signed up for Buttondown.
Today, I sent off the reviewed page proofs of the book to Routledge, which was a task I’d been dreading. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared it would be. Once it was checked off my list, I felt like a door had opened somewhere in my head and a fresh breeze was blowing in. I’ve been so wound up in getting the book done (or worrying that I wasn’t getting the book done) that I couldn’t even conceive of writing anything else, especially not the kind of loose, not-quite-fully formed stuff I’d enjoyed writing for the blog. Suddenly it seems entirely possible again. We’ll see!
Since you’ve shown enough interest to visit this blog, I think you might enjoy signing up for “This Isn’t What I Signed Up For, But…” my latest experiment in writing about things that interest me that sit in that messy intersection of museums, culture, digital technologies, and the larger world. This newsletter is the spiritual successor to this blog, CODE|WORDS , A Series of Epistolary Romances, and Humanizing the Digital. This blog will continue to host occasional editions of the newsletter that seem like they have lasting value. And so away we go!
And if you want to know why the newsletter is called what it is, you’ll have to sign up!
Thinking about Museums 
Ed, I’ll read whatever you write and listen to whatever you say! I always learn something new and get fresh insights from you. Looking forward to the book, too!
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