Birthing Books & Planting Projects

Hey it's me Tom Critchlow. You probably know me from.. my blog? Twitter? Who knows. Anyway - I'm an indie consultant, blogger and lover of the color green. Last time I wrote was in April.

On September 10th, 2021, internet treasure Craig Mod launched a pop-up newsletter. It was supposed to run for 21 days and document the inner workings of his next book. A behind the scenes full of delightful details and snippets of what the book making process feels like.

Well, yesterday Craig sent the 192nd issue of this "pop-up", "21 email" series. 192!! It's still documenting the inner workings of his next book, it's just that... it turns out making books is a little tricky!

I've deeply appreciated the journey Craig has taken us on for the book - you can feel him wrestling with ideas of themes, structure, editing, pacing, art direction, cover design. Because of course Craig Mod is an internet weirdo and is making the book completely himself.

And of course I resonate with this because I too am an internet weirdo and making a book completely by myself.

Book Update

I'm not running a pop-up newsletter for the book project (not yet anyway!) but stuff is happening. Here's a little timeline of the origin story of where my book came from:

2016

• Dec 14th: Publish a blog post a fieldguide to independent consulting that gets some nice traction.

2017

• July 18th: Publish a blog post the consultant's grain.
• By the end of 2017: I realize that I have a lot of thoughts about indie consulting and can keep writing about it.

2018

• June 28th, 2018: I read the works of the Helsinki Design Lab and the concept of "strategy & stewardship" unlocks the realization that there's interesting, exciting and novel concepts around consulting
• During 2018 I've been working with an executive coach and through this work I realize that writing a book is something I really want to do. It's obvious that the book to write is "The Strategic Independent" and the book is officially a going concern.

2019/2020

• I publish a series of posts that increasingly look like book chapters instead of blog posts. They're longer, more detailed, more ambitious.

2021/2022

• Umm. A pandemic I guess? Moved house? Lots of life stuff got in the way of writing and there wasn't much output...

2023

• Let's go! I'm working with a fellow indie consultant on a focused book sprint to get the book over the finished line. It feels great to be making real progress here. Here's a screenshot from our latest book jam session:

Yes, it's madness. But it's also PROGRESS. Progressive madness.

The structure we're arriving at has three acts:

• Act 1: Why strategic work is better for you and better for clients
• Act 2: How to do impactful strategic work
• Act 3: The inner game of consulting

More soon.

I launched a new thing: enter the NEW MBA

Guess I buried the lede here huh?

For the last 2.5 years I've been building the SEO MBA and it's been an amazing success. Honestly I feel very lucky - it's done more for me than I could have hoped for. But/and(!) it's never been quite the right frame for me personally - my consulting work touches SEO but is so much broader than this these days.

And the ideas that I teach as part of the SEO MBA courses are applicable to more than just SEO professionals!

So here we are, enter the NEW MBA.

I've been wrestling with this idea for at least a year, but I'm finally unblocked in a way that lets me plant this seed of a project and see how it grows.

To begin with, the project is a newsletter exploring ways of being more capable and confident at work. We're going to explore ideas around seeing like an executive and networked careers and all kinds of other things. Read more about the project in the launch post: Welcome to the NEW MBA

There are going to be courses and learning experiences in the future but for now, if you want to follow along: go join the newsletter.

Finish Your Projects

Books are birthed. Projects are planted. However you do it, creating anything comes with fear and self doubt. It's tempting to self-sabotage by simply freezing up. By NOT doing the thing.

So what's the opposite of self-sabotage? Maybe, maybe! it's self-promotion. I love this meditation from Rachel Meager: Finish Your Projects.

Oh, and in a related vein if you like cellos, crying and creativity (but also hope, inspiration and joy) sit down somewhere comfortable and watch this powerful 90min Creative Mornings talk about who gets to call themselves creative.

What are you working on in secret? What books are waiting to be birthed? What projects are waiting to be planted? Send me your works in progress. I'll give you a kick in the ass to ship it.

Much love,

Tom