Thread by @sfrantzman

Thread: #writing Sometimes people ask me "how do you write so much," but I don't see it as writing a lot, I cover a few subjects consistently and develop ideas and connect dots by doing so; I view my writing as kind of open-ended books and I'm just adding a chapter a week;

That isn't to say I don't put a lot of work into articles, some articles are based on months of research, but while I'm doing that I'm learning other details that often work for shorter pieces, maybe a sentence in a larger piece could be developed into a whole different article

I'm not trying to be "prolific"...I have a lot of energy, I like to focus on writing, and I have a lot of ideas and I'd prefer to get them on paper as it were than have them come and go. One downside though is that I'm less in the field because of the lockdowns, so there's that.

When I write I hyperlink everything and I keep a list of all sources used and unused, even block text I might want later; this comes from my experience in academia and PhD work as a historian...always sourcing..and I can easily go back to it for future pieces;

I have memory and obsessive quality that is driven to compile information, so I like to make lists and timelines, charts and excel sheets; and then extrapolate the information; I followed the Covid numbers in every MidEast state for months; and every rocket attack in Iraq etc.

When you have a mind that is obsessed with details like that it can also make writing come faster because you already have the details, the facts, to work into a piece or pieces, you don't need to reinvent the wheel, just add to it each time.

One thing I learned also is about the tragedy of interviews, which is that you do long interviews and only end up using a few quotes. That doesn't mean I don't do them, but there is an inherent tragedy in the space considerations of many articles.

What am I working on these days?
-UAVs, drone technology, defense tech (Israel mostly)
-Middle East regional alliance system changes
-Iran, Turkey and their proxies
-Erosion of US power and rise of regional states
-Kurdistan region, KRG