[fardo]

The author’s right about storytelling from day one, but then immediately throws cold water on the idea by saying it would have been a bad fit for this project.

This feels in error, as the big value of seeking feedback and results early and often on a project is that it forces you to confront whether you’re going to want or be able to tell stories in the space at all. It also gives you a chance to re-kindle waning interests, get feedback on your project by others, and avoid ratholing into something for about 5 years without having to engage with a public.

If a project can’t emotionally bear day one scrutiny, it’s unlikely to fare better five years later when you’ve got a lot of emotions about incompleteness and the feeling your work isn’t relevant anymore tied up in the project.

[rixed]

Would you be able to recommend a project whom author did engage in such public story telling from early on?

[Swizec]

Thinking Fast and Slow is a result of some 20 years of regularly publishing and talking about those ideas with others.

Most really memorable works fit that same mold if you look carefully. An author spends years, even decades, doing small scale things before one day they put it all together into a big thing.

Comedy specials are the same. Develop material in small scale live with an audience, then create the big thing out of individual pieces that survive the process.

Hamming also talks about this as door open vs door closed researchers in his famous You And Your Research essay