New kind of post

So Molly and I are tossing around the idea of writing a book about co-housing and collaboration, which I can tell you all about the pitch for in a conversation if you want, but at the moment we're trying to write about the 14 chapters we've decided we need to have--a paragraph per chapter. I've been procrastinating on producing my 7 paragraphs (I've always struggled with writing about what I'm going to write, but I've also never written a whole book and some working up to it seems necessary and important) so I'm going to post a very rough draft of those paragraphs every day until I've produced seven. Here's one, currently chapter five in our outline, but I expect that to change (this one seems central enough that fifth position seems too late, as I compose this overview.) I'm terribly self-conscious about posting this rough draft of a thing I've never done and have imposter syndrome about being qualified to do. But I'm posting anyway because it will make me do it.

Communication (constant)

            It will surprise no one to hear about how important communication is in any kind of group dynamic system. But “Communication is important!” is an empty mantra unless there is a structure and a culture for proactive and even habitual information transfer. Life is busy; much as we intend to share our thoughts, often we’re just not home at the same time. Some months the kitchen is a huge mess and steam is coming out of Heater’s ears, or the kids have been figuring out that different adults have very different policies about loose glitter distribution throughout the house and are taking advantage of the inconsistency, or the plants that got dug up when the sewer pipe failed need to be replaced by something but everyone has a different and passionate opinion about what—and who’s going to pay for that, anyway? And we need to talk about it, and come to some kind of agreement. This chapter discusses principles of collaborative communication and decision-making, including thoughts about meetings and the meta-level of “deciding how to decide”: Majority rule? 100% consensus? A designated decision maker? Who has veto power? We also showcase some scenarios where communication strategy wasn’t consciously addressed and passive avoidance techniques prevailed to our ruin. Like when all of Molly’s jeans mysteriously vanished for three months.