You know the expression “your eyes are bigger than your stomach?” It’s not usually a problem I have with regards to food (I consider it one of the advantages of running ~30 miles per week), but I have a similar problem at times when it comes to projects. I’m known to be a little overly ambitious and, to use another food-related idiom, to bite off more than I can chew. I’ve struggled with it in everything from school projects to house projects to personal engineering efforts, and though the results are usually worthwhile, I do not make my path to get there easier on myself. Nor are my writing efforts immune from such effects, as evidenced by my repeated rescheduling of my anticipated project completion dates and the long list of projects I set for myself each year in my IGC update.
All this is to say that, at a time when I’m struggling to keep pace with my usual cadence of posts and book reviews and am far behind on my intended writing schedule for Golems and Kings and other projects, I’m announcing a new weekly content undertaking, and not one directly related to IGC Publishing’s ostensible core focus. That disconnect is why I think it’s feasible for me to undertake this effort at all, though, and it ties into a related long-term goal which I will discuss more later in the post. First, I should probably explain just what it is that I’m intending to do, now that I’ve buried the lead beneath a couple hundred rambling words.
I am announcing a weekly update post/newsletter, primarily focused on science and technology, but with flexibility for me to include other content if I come across something interesting. This will not be a forum for significant original content from me, but rather a place for me to collect interesting articles, scientific papers, and other resources I come across over the course of the week, with brief commentary on why I found each piece interesting or significant. The reason I think this is viable for me to undertake at this time is because it is, in a sense, something I already do. Every week, I collate for myself a list of interesting articles, paper, and resources which I find worth reading or even saving for later reference. Some of these already appear as Tuesday posts, but there are many which do not rise to the level of an independent posting, but which I still think you may find interesting. This new newsletter will be a forum in which I can share such content, and it will be released most Saturdays.
If you already receive notifications when my Tuesday posts and Thursday book reviews are published, you’ll automatically receive this newsletter, too, and it will be available directly on the site in the same feed as everything else. I will make a new category for it, and I’ll see about setting it up so you can just subscribe to the newsletter if you’re interested in that, since I know it may not have exactly the same audience as my usual content. Which brings me to the bigger picture considerations which are prompting me to pursue this undertaking.
IGC Publishing exists primarily because I wanted a forum in which to share my writing efforts, starting with accountability for finishing stories while I developed my abilities, and then as a platform for limited self-publishing and to support my traditional publishing efforts. At various points and in various ways, I’ve sought to generalize the site into educational content and similar material, but it doesn’t quite work, and I’ve not pursued those directions with much diligence, as much as they interest me. This is, after all, primarily a writing (and reading) site, and I try to mostly keep the content focused around what can be at least partially or loosely connected with that focus (and yes, I acknowledge that some of what I share is a stretch in that regard). One day, I could see having guest authors or even publishing other people’s stories, too, but that’s a ways down the road. The point is that IGC Publishing is primarily about, well, publishing. The written word, storytelling. However, that is far from my only interest.
If you’ve been reading here for long enough, you’ve surely realized I’m something of an insatiable polymath and a bit of a garage tinkerer. Though this year my focus has been on house projects instead of engineering projects, once those are done I have every intention of returning to engineering projects, starting with the 3D printer modifications which I alluded to in previous posts. Documentation is critical for such undertakings whether I’m sharing them with anyone or not, and I would like to be able to share them so that others can learn from my efforts. I’d thought IGC Publishing might be the venue to do that, but I now think that’s too far from what I’ve made IGC Publishing to be. These days, I have a vision for a spinoff from IGC Publishing, IGC Engineering, which would be focused on science, engineering, and technology content, including educational series and project documentation, probably with paid courses and content, too. This is not something I’ll be creating tomorrow or even this year, but it might happen in the next two or three. When it does, I see this science and technology newsletter as a bridge between the two sister sites.
That’s all the future. For now, there will be a newsletter focused on science and technology, with the first one published this upcoming Saturday. I hope you’ll follow along.
IGC Publishing 