#15: It's Moving Day

Welcome to Spring! I hope you had a great first 21% of the year.

Me? What did I do?

Thanks for asking — I climbed the Nobody Cares Mountain.

The place where this conversation happens is the Everybody Is Excited About This Summit.

It's the top of the mountain, high above the clouds. The visible work. The exciting shit.

The part of every creative project that people imagine when they think of silly little creative people. Writers in their wooden cabins with steaming mugs and clacky typewriters. Painters in their studio wearing stained coveralls. Composers hunched over a piano, faintly humming and scribbling notes on staff paper.

It's also the place where the work finally changes hands. Where, you, as the beholder of the art finally get to, you know, behold it.

Yet, it's called the summit for a reason.

Below the clouds, there's a whole hostile mountain, grey and craggy, trying to suck the life out of those silly little creative people.

There's an invisible part to any creative endeavor made up of a lot of legwork. Work that is not exciting, not glamorous, and a lot of the time, not even creative. Yet, you have to do it, otherwise you won't get to the summit to be your silly little artist self.

It's the months of tedious research before the writer can get to his cabin. It's the cleaning of the brushes after each painting session. It's the tuning of the piano.

Or, in my case, it's when my previous newsletter provider, TinyLetter, tells me it's shutting down, so be a lamb, and find a new way to email readers.

It's named the Nobody Cares Mountain for a reason.

And I'm not telling you all of this to make you care. I don't even care.

Believe me, I didn't become a writer, so I can shop for newsletter software and write privacy policies. (Although, if privacy policies were written by writers, we might all be better off.)

I'm telling you all of this because you might also be a creative person who struggles with the journey up the Nobody Cares Mountain. Like me.

And I want you to know that it's okay to struggle. That the work you're doing — while not glamorous — is important. It is what enables you, me, and every other creative to reach the summit and hand that piece of art to the people waiting there.

So good on us for hiking up the Mountain.

And please, keep going.

Anyway, I have a new newsletter provider! 🎉

It's called Ghost, and this time around I'm paying for it, so I really hope that A) it won't go through enshittification, and B) it'll stay around for a long time.

I'm optimistic because it's run by a non-profit that does old-school capitalism. The kind where they just make a good product and then charge money for it.

From your point of view, the basics won't change.

You'll still get the newsletter in your inbox — hopefully, every other week, but definitely every other sometime. You can also peruse the archives as usual, because I brought the back issues over from TinyLetter.

(Some links might have broken during the migration. If you find something missing, please let me know, and I'll fix it.)

There are also some improvements — a better design, feedback buttons at the bottom of each issue, and a comment section! Now you can tell me what issues you like and dislike and we can chat about stuff under each issue.

I'm equally terrified and excited about this. 😅

With the new engine under the hood, some legal stuff also needs to happen.

Why?

Because whenever I change anything around the data I'm collecting from you, the reader, or how I'm handling it, GDPR requires me to update my privacy policy and notify you.

This is that notification and it's actually a good thing. It lets you know what's happening with your personal information and gives you a chance to revoke your consent.

So what changed?

I switched from TinyLetter to Ghost, and the latter collects a bit more data from you. Mainly because of the new features, like the comment section, but also because it has deeper analytics than TinyLetter did.

You can find a detailed description of everything that's going on in my updated privacy policy. Fun is not something a privacy policy can be, but I tried to make the text clear and as short as it could be.

So what do you need to do?

If you're okay with the changes, then nothing. By staying subscribed to Extremely Unannoying, you accept the new version of the privacy policy, and we'll go on together. If, for some reason, you are not okay with the switch to Ghost and the new policy, you can find the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.

That's it. The legal paragraph is over. You can stop holding your breath.

Okay, enough with the public service announcements!

Let's move on to why we're all here: good stuff from the internet. The theme is: "Is It Still Okay To Post »It's a New Year!« Content in March?"

The good books of 2023

If you remember, I wrote a big post last year about the best books, comics, movies, and TV shows I experienced in 2022.

It was long. I mean, really long.

So, after consulting with some friends who also happen to be Extremely Unannoying readers, I made two improvements this year:

1. Separate, shorter posts for every category.
2. Pictures of the things I'm recommending.

I hope they'll make you at least as happy as strongly my friends have advocated for them! 😄

This first installment is about the books I loved in 2023. I hope you find something exciting on it for your own TBR list.

You can expect one of these posts in every upcoming Extremely Unannoying until we run out of categories. Will we finish rounding up last year's picks before the end of this one?

Probably.

Possibly.

We'll see.

Did you look back on 2023 already? If not, it's not too late

Yearly reflections are one of those rituals that can have outsized effects compared to the energy you need to put into them. I've done one almost every year since 2015.

(The pandemic fried my ability to be interested in anything other than the now for a minute, but I'm slowly getting back in the saddle.)

If you're an absolute beginner in this territory, YearCompass is a great starter set. And if you already know what you're doing — or you're short on time — give my own quick framework a try. I've been using it for the past three years, and so far it held up well.

And remember, it's perfectly okay to plan your year in March. Or really, whenever.

Thanks for reading the first issue of Season 2 of Extremely Unannoying! I hope it was worth the wait.

And I also hope that with the shiny new technical foundation, I will be able to get back to a more regular schedule, delivering delightful bits to your inbox every other sometime.

See you in the next issue!

(And until then, while you wait, maybe pop into our new comment section and let me know what your favorite book was in 2023. I'm always on the lookout for new reads.)