I'm Big Famous Now After Writing For A Year

I'm a legend in my own mind

That title scored 93/100 on Monster Title Insights. I started with something like ‘1 year yay 🥳’ but that was only a 48 in an angry red so I had to keep trying until I came up with this word salad which broke into the 90’s and a pretty green. According to SEO voodoo, it is nay impossible not to click on a 93 so this post will go viral and so can you! ¹

The subtitle only scored an orange 66. 66! Monster Insights, you are pissing Clint Eastwood off because these are the iconic words that he growled at his boss while getting chewed out as Dirty Harry in Sudden Impact.

After getting berated for a couple of minutes, the epic scene ends like so:

BOSS <yelling> “Do you know who you’re talking too?”

HARRY <through clenched teeth> “Yeah, you’re a legend in your own mind …”

While I may not be big famous - yet - I’m happy that I wrote a years worth of interesting things for you to read². Wasn’t sure I had it in me.

Hands down the best thing of all is you guys that do the reading. Tech Tales is approaching hundreds (with an s!) of readers and I love getting a text or email about an article or we get a chance to talk or chat about something I wrote down.

You’re the best reader family ever! Checkout the newsletter website - I redid the layout now that we’ve got a year’s worth of content - and just look at how sparkly it is!

I hope our reader family keeps growing.

Some of you have politely and some not so politely told me you're surprised I can put a sentence together. While my corporate career was in tech, still I wrote a LOT. Emails. So many emails. Need an email to cut through all the other emails and get sh*#t DONE? I’m your guy. I also wrote a ton across chat, presentations, classes, meetings. Too many meetings.

While being a big talker in said meetings can also be useful, to influence all the people you need to get big stuff done in a big organization you have to write it down. Writing crystalizes your ask, your proposal, your pitch - you have to get good at it. I struggled with writing early on but was lucky to have some good teachers. For me at least, it doesn’t come naturally..

Tech Tales gives me a chance to keep working at it. Oh! Did I mention I rebranded the newsletter?

New name, new logo.

It’s taking me awhile to shake my corporate writing style: succinct, data based, don’t waste the exec’s time, and evolve to a writing style that’s more conversational, welcoming and fluid. I’ll keep working on it and I’m motivated by some of the authors I’ve found on Substack.

I’ve come to appreciate the structure of writing once a week. I like playing around with different titles, I like working with my AI besties to create a pretty picture, I like noodling on topics and storylines while I wander and I like digging into something I’m curious about. I like it when I can write about some work I’ve done with a customer that might help another small business out.

That’s right, remember Tech Tales is but the publishing arm of my ever small-business and digital design company Wirepine. I’m sure I dropped hints on this too but if you haven’t already, check out Wirepine’s new website, logo (thank you for helping me choose it), name (Wirepine Digital) and slogan (Websites Made Easy).

Check my customer testimonials - they’re the best!

Thanks again for jumping on board and helping me figure out my post big-business life.

Should I make a goal to write for another year?

best, Andrew

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I saved writing about the first computer I owned and loved💚for my 52nd article last week. Replete with a pic I found from grad school where I actually have hair:

1. I use Monster Insights SEO plugin on some of my wordpress sites to make sure all the SEO vodoo is baked in.

2. I wrote my First! post exactly 365 days ago on 6/28/2023 and since then I’ve written enough for 1/2 a Harry Potter Novel (64,591 words) so maybe if I write another year …