Creator’s Crunch: Mini-Doc and Deadlines

Happy June!

Let’s dive into the personal updates, the technical headaches, and the upcoming deadlines that are currently keeping my coffee maker running on overdrive.

Let’s start with the big one. If you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you know my usual videos are relatively punchy. They sit comfortably in that 8-to-12-minute sweet spot—long enough to get into the meat of a topic, but short enough that my rendering computer doesn’t sound like a jet engine preparing for takeoff.

Well, next Wednesday (June 10), I’m dropping a new mini-documentary.

Go ahead and take a guess at how long the rough cut is right now. If you’re thinking, “Oh, Timow usually pushes it a bit for special projects, maybe it’s around 30 minutes."

Right now, it's clocked at 11 minutes. The timeline is a sprawling, chaotic beast. It is significantly longer than anything I’ve ever attempted before.

I’ve committed myself to a strict "one chapter per day" review process.

Yesterday, I made it past a chapter that required me to do a screen recording and some fact-checking with the help of Gemini and ChatGPT for suggestions and guidance in the flow of the story. (Don't worry, I recorded my videos and narration ahead.)

The Written Word: Two Formats, Two Days, Two Very Different Minds

I have two major back-to-back writing assignments due this week.

First up is a client's request for a WordPress blog post that is scheduled to publish tomorrow, about the first year of a new radio station, after we celebrated a classical radio station's anniversary yesterday.

Then, Substack.

I'll have to do my Field Note column and with the stupidity in the Senate before they adjourn the regular session sine die, I can't find anything to write before the Thursday, 5 p.m. deadline. I also need to update the sports because it's the Finals of both the NBA and the NHL.

Final Thoughts: The Method Behind the Madness

If you look at my task list from the outside, it looks like a recipe for a total burnout.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of watching a chaotic, 40-minute mess of a timeline slowly transform into a tight, compelling 20 or 30-minute documentary. There’s a distinct satisfaction in watching a blank Substack draft turn into a deeply personal essay.

I need to get back to ripping assets for that final video segment before my software decides to freeze up again. Wish me luck.

Catch you in the next update, or in your inbox this Thursday.

~Timow P

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