Blog Post #15, In Which I Reflect On The Past Two Weeks
So we're halfway through November. Halfway through NaBloPoMo.
Here is my assessment of the month thus far:
This is harder than i expected! I thought the hard part would be coming up with ideas. Wrong. Ideas are the easy part. The hard part is writing.
Before i started, i figured that posts would take an hour or so to write, and i was honestly worried about running out of things to write about.
What actually happened is that i have plenty of ideas, but most posts take the better part of a day to write, so i have to be careful to choose subjects that i think i can finish in time.
I really should have known better, on both counts. I'm not what you would call a fantastic writer, and definitely not a fast one. When i've written essays for classes, it has always taken way too long and been a huge struggle. Even writing an email to a friend can be a Herculean task.
As for ideas, i already know from reading Paul Graham that ideas are worthless.
I think this is what you would call the planning fallacy in action.
I wish i could write faster; my post on backup tools took 9 hours to write, from start to finish. 1 One of my problems is that i compose in my head; I need to stop doing that. The most important thing is to get stuff written down even if i think it's awful. Because maybe it'll turn out not to be so bad. Or maybe i can re-word it. (Or maybe my writing just sucks and there's nothing i can do about it...) Written text can be reflected upon and massaged into shape. If i don't write stuff down, i'll just end up staring at a blank screen.
Well! I suppose the way to improve at writing-as with anything other skill-is to keep doing it. Practice, practice, practice. That is why i'm doing NaBloPoMo, isn't it?
The upshot of all this is that i haven't had much time to work on veekun or floof. Or any of a dozen other projects. Or to read the mountain of books beside my bed. All this writing is also majorly conflicting with my goal of not using my computer after it gets dark outside.
So we're halfway through November. On the other hand, we're halfway through November! This is terrific because now i know i'll be able to finish through to the end. You see, i know i can write 2 more weeks' worth of posts because i've done it once before.