My newsletter strategy

If my inside-facing writing revolves around my journal, the outside-facing writing revolves around my website, whose content is divided into newsletters or newsletter-shaped artifacts.

I have four kinds of content in my website.

  1. A monthly newsletter. This newsletter, called Umán (to change, repair, or repeat), features experimental weavings of creative artifacts I produce from my daily studies, readings, journaling, and walks. Its purpose is twofold: track my life and practice experimental writing techniques.
  2. A spontaneous newsletter. This newsletter, called The Long Walk are engagements with specific subject matters related to walking, literature, photography, and spirituality. They are scheduled spontaneously to accommodate the slow progress of my thinking on these things. I also use this newsletter to announce upcoming walks.
  3. Pop-up newsletters. These newsletters document each day of my walks and are time-bound.
  4. Essays. Not published as a newsletter but could be linked into my newsletters. These essays will be archived in a separate tab in my website. The tab will serve as a container for essays I send to workshops, publications, etc.

Producing my monthly newsletter follows the workflow I described below. However, my spontaneous newsletter and essays follow a workflow I outlined in my writing process. When working on titles for each category, I use an editorial calendar to keep track of them.

How to prepare an omán

Here's the workflow I follow when preparing my monthly newsletter:

  1. I perform my monthly review routine.
  2. While accomplishing my monthly report for the previous month, I'll create a working note for the omán where I just copy-paste fragments I want to use.
  3. I look for experimental writing techniques to apply and incorporate photographs I took in the previous month.
  4. I upload everything to my content management system.
  5. I publish at least on the fourth day of the new month.