Misc writing thoughts, plus Liv
Procrastination
I never did enough writing for it to be a major source of procrastination, but when I did, I often did "not starting" or "having started, not wanting to stop because I don't expect to be able to start again tomorrow".
That was a very similar sort of procrastination I'd have first thing of the day at work, when I had a good task in front of me, but I was scared of starting it and having to stick with it all day.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that has almost vanished for my writing. I wouldn't like to say it was permanent -- I'm sure it will rear it's head again if I'm writing something I *am* intimidated by. But I think once something becomes "I'm used to the idea that I can do this well enough compared to the standard I expect", it's a lot less intimidating to start, there's not the uncertainty, just an assumption if I put some time in I'll get commensurate results.
Writing vs coding
I've said I sometimes have a similar process with writing and coding. Not a formal process, just a similar pattern of mind. But it occurred to me it might be interesting to try and actually examine it.
Something like, I'm having some trouble starting something. Usually a chapter or a function, but sometimes a larger scale design decision. Why? Usually because I'm not sure what's actually going to go into it.
I usually have some things I WANT to include. If I write those out, those usually are a combination of "what I want this to achieve", "what I think a nice implementation might be" and "this is just cool, I'd like to have it".
And when I do that, I can usually see the problem -- usually, I had multiple, contradictory, assumptions about what it should do, usually because I thought of a simple constraint I expected to be able to fulfil, but it was contradictory to my other expectations.
But when I write it out, I can usually see what may be contradictory. And then decide which top-level requirements are most important, and accept any ugliness elsewhere which is necessary to achieve those, and then fulfil as many of the things I thought would be very good as possible.
If I had more time, I'd contrast a couple of particular examples, and this would be a lot less vague.
Liv
Unrelated to the above, but I was very pleased to realise, after a while of practising bridge bidding, and cycling, together, we're pretty much just on the same page: we usually understand our bidding, and cycling somewhere in town is mostly automatic, rather than an adventure.
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comments so far.
I never did enough writing for it to be a major source of procrastination, but when I did, I often did "not starting" or "having started, not wanting to stop because I don't expect to be able to start again tomorrow".
That was a very similar sort of procrastination I'd have first thing of the day at work, when I had a good task in front of me, but I was scared of starting it and having to stick with it all day.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that has almost vanished for my writing. I wouldn't like to say it was permanent -- I'm sure it will rear it's head again if I'm writing something I *am* intimidated by. But I think once something becomes "I'm used to the idea that I can do this well enough compared to the standard I expect", it's a lot less intimidating to start, there's not the uncertainty, just an assumption if I put some time in I'll get commensurate results.
Writing vs coding
I've said I sometimes have a similar process with writing and coding. Not a formal process, just a similar pattern of mind. But it occurred to me it might be interesting to try and actually examine it.
Something like, I'm having some trouble starting something. Usually a chapter or a function, but sometimes a larger scale design decision. Why? Usually because I'm not sure what's actually going to go into it.
I usually have some things I WANT to include. If I write those out, those usually are a combination of "what I want this to achieve", "what I think a nice implementation might be" and "this is just cool, I'd like to have it".
And when I do that, I can usually see the problem -- usually, I had multiple, contradictory, assumptions about what it should do, usually because I thought of a simple constraint I expected to be able to fulfil, but it was contradictory to my other expectations.
But when I write it out, I can usually see what may be contradictory. And then decide which top-level requirements are most important, and accept any ugliness elsewhere which is necessary to achieve those, and then fulfil as many of the things I thought would be very good as possible.
If I had more time, I'd contrast a couple of particular examples, and this would be a lot less vague.
Liv
Unrelated to the above, but I was very pleased to realise, after a while of practising bridge bidding, and cycling, together, we're pretty much just on the same page: we usually understand our bidding, and cycling somewhere in town is mostly automatic, rather than an adventure.
You can also comment at http://jack.dreamwidth.org/1009075.html using OpenID.
comments so far.