9/22 Update: This project is now live at BuyMyFuture.com
Unforeseen Changes
All projects have them and they come in many different shapes and sizes. The 60-day journal I’ve been writing for the past 20 days is no different.
If you missed the first 20 journal entries and want to get caught up, go here
So here we are on Day 21 of Project Galaxy. You aren’t reading this update at the end of an epically long 10,000+ word story on Medium. What gives?
Well, first off, I hadn’t looked at the Project Galaxy story on mobile. Oops! Actually that’s not true. I’d looked at it, but really only to check my notifications and reply to any notes. I hadn’t actually tried to read the story itself or use my hacked together “day navigation” I’d created. While the little hack of creating a link to a note further down in the story worked on the desktop version of the story, it didn’t work at all on mobile. And considering I know the traffic for my own website is about 60% desktop and 40% mobile, I was giving 40% of you a not-so-great-reading-experience.
I wanted to test my own assumption about keeping the journal as one long story or starting to break journal entries into their own individual stories. So I went to Twitter, the place I’m sharing these daily entries, and asked people what they wanted. A few people quickly chimed in with thoughts that validated my assumption:
(Thanks Rachal, Gerlando, and others for the feedback!)
Secondly, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous every time I started trying to add a new entry to the bottom of the big Project Galaxy story. There were a few days when I clicked the “Edit” or “Publish” button and I could feel drops of sweat accumulating on my forehead as the page took just a few too many seconds to load. I did create a backup of the story in Google Docs each morning, but that task in itself felt very inefficient. And full credit to Medium, I never had a single issue updating that super long story.
And last but not least, I felt like some of the content I was creating was getting buried (like Hustle Porn). I’ve recorded two audio journals (and a third below). Those were really fun and I bet a lot of the folks following the journal entries completely missed them. Why keep doing something a certain way if I felt like it was hindering the reach? It was time for a change!
So, now what?
Going forward, or for at least the next 20 days, I’m going to post the Project Galaxy journal entries as individual stories on Medium. This will give the best experience possible for you guys, the readers!
I’ve also created a new Publication just for Project Galaxy. As a reminder, if you want to be notified when I write these journal entries, simply follow this Publication (click the link, then click the “Follow” button). I’ll be sending a weekly table of contents via Medium’s Letters feature.
There are moments in every project when things don’t go exactly as planned. There are little shifts, little changes, little course corrections that have to be made. Moving these journal entries from one long story to individual stories is a test in itself. I have no clue if it will actually be a better experience or not, but we’ll find out together!
Meet the copywriter for Project Galaxy, Hillary Weiss
Now that we’ve gotten all the logistical stuff out of the way, let me introduce you to one of the people helping make Project Galaxy awesome: Hillary Weiss.
Hillary was recommended to me by my friend David Sherry. David and I have had multiple conversations about Project Galaxy and he knew I was looking for a few people to help with certain aspects of the project. As you’ll hear in the conversation Hillary and I had below, I “Googled On” her and immediately loved her writing style and sense of humor. I won’t spoil any more details, go ahead and listen to our chat:
I’m excited to share Hillary’s skills with you when this project launches on September 22. Her words will be very hard to miss!
How do you like the first individual journal entry?
I’d love some feedback. Feel free to send me a tweet with your thoughts. You can also leave a note here on Medium. And of course, that little Recommend button shows your love and affection for me too :)
