Content calendars are ruining the internet, and probably sending some people right to hell.
Your tongue (or your typing fingers) is doing damage.
Every word has an eternal price.
As a mouthy person (mostly on paper, sometimes in person), I have a very expensive habit. As it turns out, your strengths end up being your worst weakness, and I guess writing is one of my strengths. Unfortunately.
Let’s start with numbers to illustrate the problem that’s concerning, using myself as an example.
On average, my posts range from 800 to 2000 words. So let’s just say 1000 words. In my Substack account, I have 176 draft posts waiting to be finished, and have published 375 posts. I have ten podcasts as of this post. I have written seven books.1
My earliest website from 1998 had the J Letters, and there were probably about 60 of these early blog posts. From there, I went to Blogger. My old Blogger blogs have 3,051 published posts, give or take a few from smaller blogs I didn’t bother to count. In my WordPress blog, the second iteration of the Lone Prairie Blog, I have around 2,200 blog posts (the backup method used makes it tricky to get a precise tally).
This doesn’t count the blog posts I wrote either as a guest writer or in partnership with someone else (for example, a book discussion blog). I’m estimating about 50 or so blog posts there. I won’t count the blog posts I wrote for clients, as my name isn’t on them and they are benign, professional topics.
I probably should include long-form social media posts (Substack notes, X, Facebook), which I’m going to put around the 1,500+ mark, assuming that’s a lowball considering how long I’ve been on Facebook and how much I’ve used those platforms at different times. Let’s add Reddit posts and comments, of which there are four posts and 86 comments, of which about half of them are me arguing with Canadians, and I’m not proud of that. Let’s also add to that the years of responding on other forums and comment sections that no longer exist, which I’d estimate to be in the range of 2,000 thanks in no small part to arguments with Calvinist Reformed dude bros and trolls.
Hold on, though, because there are the emails I’ve sent. Most are professional or fine, but with friends, they might have been off-color (and easily taken out of context by anyone but a friend), and with random people contacting me from my website just because they could, some were downright angry. I would estimate that number to be in the 4,000+ range.
I’ve written probably 300+ handwritten letters, but oddly enough, because I can type faster than I write, I tend to get less fiery and regretfully behaved when writing longhand, so there’s a regulator in place (there could be a lesson to be learned there). Typing makes it easy to snap back fast. I’m less concerned about the handwritten letters.
We’re not even going to talk about the bookshelves of my personal journals—100+ I’m guessing—because at least others haven’t read those, though God certainly knows what I wrote and that what was in my heart wasn’t always good. There’s some accountability there.
Those are the words I’ve written. There are also the words I have not yet written.
I don’t have a shortage of ideas—people predisposed to ponder don’t—though sometimes a shortage of timely motivation. I mention that, and this next set of numbers, because what’s at issue is creating regular content. So, I have a document where I just drop all the blog post ideas I get to clear my head. In there, I have 182 blog post ideas that are different from the Substack draft post ideas. I also have a recording app that lets me quickly capture ideas while I’m out walking, as well as an email folder in which I write or forward emails that would make great blog posts.
It is only the journals, unpublished drafts, and blog post ideas that have not yet been said aloud; the rest of this is essentially a list of all the words I have put out there over most of my adult life and am accountable to God for, and though I am eternally (literally) grateful for Jesus Christ, those words still landed somewhere on someone and either damaged or encouraged.
I’ve written a lot of things over the years. I can’t remember most of them. But I am still responsible for them.
This puts the fear of God in me; I don’t know why “Christian” talking heads and podcasters say the things they do unless they aren’t considering this reality.
We will give an account for every idle word (Matthew 12:36-37). I maintain that anyone who is writing, speaking, or in any way creating content is, essentially, teaching, and there is a greater burden of stricter judgment on teachers (James 3:1). Our mouth does, indeed, lead us into sin (Ecclesiastes 5:6). The evil things we say trouble our days (1 Peter 3:10). Seriously, there are so many places in the Bible where we are warned about what we say that I don’t think you’d have any trouble finding many more, especially in Proverbs.
So now we get to the issue of writing either because you have to or you’d explode, versus writing because you have to, to maintain an audience. Enter the upcoming generations of online writers who struggle for ideas, difficult to imagine since I’ve not really had that experience myself, yet understanding that the marketable niche blogs of today narrow the available topics.
For such folks, the content calendar is often necessary.
An editorial calendar, or content calendar, is where you plan and communicate about all the content—written, video, social, ads—for a brand. I’m very familiar with them because I once worked for a startup whose product was a content calendar focused on content strategy, planning, and creation for content marketing.2
There is the very real problem of coming up with ideas of things to talk about. A content calendar forces you to plan ahead so you know you will create content. Even if you’re not inspired, you have the headline and topic, and by golly, you will write or create that thing, just like a real job.3 The calendar helps you know what to write. It can get you into a positive writing habit. For me, through client work and deadlines, I developed a solid method for writing about something, whether I was interested or not. That’s a useful skill, and a content calendar kind of kicks you in the pants in the same way.
Here’s the problem: once the calendar takes the lead, your writing is in service to it.
In a sense, a writer with the best writing habits will have a kind of content calendar running in the back of the mind, because productive but creative writing is a lot more structured and habitual than some might think. The difference is that the writer is driving, not the calendar. Content calendars, left to drive the process, are dangerous—especially for Christians—who should be careful about what and when they speak. If they are creating niche content on the Christian faith, or lack a good editor or an editorial restraint system, they are building up lots of words and heaping judgment on themselves.
This content calendar problem, whether it’s a formal calendar or just the content creator knowing he has to X number of content pieces this week, has led more Christians to say things they shouldn’t have said, sow rifts, and chase down targets for discernment —whether valid or not—all because the content calendar demands it.
God might not be directing them to talk about something, but they must talk about something. They need three new videos and two blog posts this week to keep up engagement. They gotta interview the people all the others in their niche are interviewing—and you want to be pleasant to them so you keep getting interviews—in order to network and get in a regular shared audience. And those interviewees? They’d better find something to talk about, regardless of whether it’s wise to platform some people and expose your audience to them.
The content calendar is god.
If you stop creating content, you lose your audience. That means you lose your money and platform. Your influence quickly fades. Follower counts and engagement dwindle.
The question of motivation is a big part of this discussion.
I write not because of a content calendar, but because my head would explode otherwise. I very much know the difference between a content calendar driving your content creation and your brain running rampant with things to explore and write about. The latter is far less profitable but also less louche, feeling less like selling your soul and more like maintaining it.
As I’ve often told young people with art degrees, there is a very big difference between being a fine artist and a production artist, and you’d better know yourself well, or it’s going to be a painful discovery process. The same can be said for writing: I keep one kind for myself (“fine art”) and another for clients (“production art”). The first is about the motivation I need to keep my brain engaged in life, and the second is the motivation to pay my bills. I do not want the motivation to pay my bills to sully the first, or I’ll soon be doing A/B testing on clickbait headlines to grow my Substack subscriptions.
Both are art, but in their proper understanding; this protects the soul.
It’s not just motivation, of course, but also understanding end results.
Some folks are backward, thinking that the success they have with their platform and content-creation mill is proof that God has blessed them and that they should continue with their methods. It does not occur to them that the enemy might leave them alone if they’re doing a good job of doing his evil work of creating and feeding disagreement and anger. You can get a kind of “dark” blessing simply by doing the devil’s work so he’s freed up to bother someone else.
Pro tip: blessings from God bring glory to God, not to self. Anything that elevates self is a curse, not a blessing.
When I started writing my little website articles almost 30 years ago, I did it just to mess around with HTML and CSS and FTP, and to enjoy discovering website code and putting random stuff online over dial-up. I did not intend for anyone beyond my local family and friends to read it.
But others did read it.
Charles Barkley might not have wanted to be a role model and mind his behavior, but he was one regardless. The moment you are elevated above others—your voice is heard and known, your platform is large, your work is seen outside of your immediate sphere—you are now responsible and will answer to God for what you do with your words and that influence.
It’s a terrifying thing.
I wouldn’t seek it out.
I don’t understand today’s idea of purposeful influencers from any angle, in light of what I’ve said here. There are a lot of podcasters, talking heads, cable news windbags, and bloggers storing up wrath. We must acknowledge that reality, and make things right when possible.
We also have to exercise self-control. I assure you that there are many whiz-bang blog posts full of snark and cutting words I could have written (and used to in my early blogging days when, thankfully, there were fewer readers online), but much of that gets deleted during editing. Some sneaks in, to my great chagrin; it is hard to remove a wicked sharp metaphor at times.
Maybe this isn’t an issue for you, but if it is, I know how hard it is to control the tongue. If you have to start somewhere, consider how your mom would feel if she read what you’d written. But if you have to end somewhere, seriously consider what God thinks because he knows what you’ve said and written, and even what you’ve thought.
I guess it’s more important to be sure you’re creating content that encourages and points to Jesus Christ than to build your platform. If your content calendar says you have to say something to keep people around, even if God is asking you to be silent on a matter, you’re going to say something you’ll regret.
I have written over 20 books, including ghostwritten ones, but only seven have my name on them as my own books.
I was scolded on Substack for using the word “content” instead of “writing” or whatever other word the fellow preferred. I just can’t care about such sensitivities at this point in my writing career. (See comment thread below.)
I want to make it very clear that I don’t think this is a bad thing, per se. If you only create when you feel like it, you won’t exercise your creative muscles. My point is that the habit of working through a creative drought is good because it’s actually a necessary part of the process, while working at the beck and call of a calendar may not be good, depending on how cautiously that calendar has been filled. The former is about exercising and getting better at your work; the latter is about audience, period.