Writing Every Day: You Won't Read it All, Which Is The Point.
Relentlessly boring advocacy efforts, explained.
The Frontier Psychiatrists is a daily health-themed newsletter. It’s written by Owen Muir, M.D., and It has a revolutionary agenda: change healthcare, with a focus on problems that are usually considered “mental health problems.” Writing a daily newsletter has been a challenge for me. Today, I’ll write about some of the how and the why.
Writing an article every day is like a marathon. Marathons are 26-mile foot races to commemorate a particular 26-mile run in ancient Greece, at the end of which the messenger Philippides, in his attempt to thwart a Persian surprise attack on Athens, ran back to deliver crucial news, declaring: "We have won!"), before collapsing and dying.
Endurance sports have risks. Daily writing is no different. Part of my daily writing habit is simple: I wanted to improve. This meant writing more and less time on the under-rewarding topic of “worrying if the writing was good enough.” I have a rule: it has to be good enough. Something goes out every day. Being a perfectionist means less practice, and less practice means my peak is less good than it will be tomorrow.
I’ve written a lot of pieces you probably haven’t read. People can’t keep up. This is also—buckle up—on purpose. Much of what I write is about systems of care, and I’ve even poked fun at companies by name, which is a great way to have them not like you. “That Owen. Not a Team Player.” A way to mitigate this risk is to write so much that they just don’t read it. With ten articles, reading the one where I roast Private Equity is easy. It gets lost in the inbox with hundreds, and I prefer it this way. I’ve roasted PE more than once, of course.
I’ve compared PE to the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz with no heart.
I’ve had vampires complain about how blood-sucking pales compared to PE acquisitions.
I’ve had those same vampires parody the term sheets offered by PE.
I’ve blamed PE for destroying the medical discipline of emergency medicine.
I made up my own PE fund that would outperform theirs with some simple math.
Any one of those articles might get me in trouble. But together? Owen continues his quixotic rants about PE…we get it. I want most readers to glaze over. I am sure—because Substack has really good analytics—most readers don't read them all. I also know that some of my readers…do.
Who reads this newsletter other than you? GREAT question.