Thread by @EleanorKonik

1/ Now and then I feel self-conscious about being so active in the #obsidianmd discord because of periodic subtweets I see cross my dash about "productivity porn" or "tools don't matter" or whatever,

and then I realize that no, actually, I'm genuinely doing more things I love —

2/ "people are just faffing off tweaking their systems instead of BEING PRODUCTIVE"

to which I say:

mother****er I have been wanting to learn programming for YEARS and never had a good entry point, me learning CSS and JavaScript well enough to use it IS "being productive"

3/ also, I was able to take my newsletter from a small "once a week" posting frequency to nearly doubling the "highlights from my research" edition's length and also add an ENTIRE new Wednesday offering, which includes a story AND an entire 500-1500 word research analysis.

4/ I basically write two entire blog posts a week now, for my newsletter The Iceberg, whereas for the LAST FIVE YEARS I've been trying to blog, I've struggled to publish even once a month.

newsletter.eleanorkonik.com

Oh, and I also run an entire SEPARATE community newsletter!

5/ okay, sure, some of that is because I'm not currently "working" because I'm on a leave of absence from my job RAISING A CHILD and I guess that gives me "more time" or something.

Except I'm a teacher!

I used to have plenty of time in the summers. I get 2 months off a year!

6/ Incidentally this isn't a subtweet of anything in particular except maybe my own neuroses, nobody said anything lately to upset me, I'm just pushing back against "the gestalt" I sense bubbling beneath a lot of surfaces.

7/ For the first time in my life I'm actually making money from my stories — which has been a dream of mine since childhood — & finding fans.

Some days I want to cry from how genuinely PERFECT #obsidianmd is for my writing process. Scrivener never worked for me.

This does.

8/ When I see people insist that "the tool doesn't matter" and "features aren't important" ...

I know, I KNOW they don't mean "you were a failure before because you couldn't be this successful using Scrivener or whatever" but that's what it FEELS LIKE.

& it's frustrating.

9/ I have infinite respect for the people in the #pkm community who sell courseware and books and such. I am a teacher. I believe in the depths of my soul they are doing good work and making the world a better place.

But it matters to me that I'm selling STORIES, not guides.

10/ and I don't mean "stories" in the "nonfiction longform investigative journalism sense" I mean I am finally writing, and selling, fiction I am proud of, in the fantasy world I have been designing and iterating on since high school.

11/ I made this! I went from an idea to a finished story in under a year, and instead of sitting on it and tweaking it back and forth for ten years, I gave it to paying customers to read.

newsletter.eleanorkonik.com/the-laundress/

Thank you, @obsdmd

I couldn't have done this with any other tool

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