"On Writing Well" and the last two weeks
I've been struggling to do things in the last few weeks. I drafted up two posts that are already obsolete, and I felt the need to get something out there so I don't lose momentum.
A reader of my previous blog post, scribblypam, sent me a recommendation for the book "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser. I'm almost through the book—only about 20% left—and there's a particular chapter that I feel is relevant here:
Writers have to jump-start themselves at the moment of performance, no less than actors and dancers and painters and musicians. There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in the current of their energy [...] that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you.
And another one a few paragraphs later:
One of the reasons I admired Red Smith was that he wrote about sports for 55 years, with grace and humor, without succumbing to the pressure, which was the ruin of many sportswriters, that he ought to be writing about something "serious." He found in sportswriting what he wanted to do and what he loved doing, and because it was right for him he said more important things about American values than many writers who wrote about serious subjects—so seriously that nobody could read them.
Both of these are from the chapter "Enjoyment, Fear and Confidence."
Though I do not know how good the writing advice in the book is, it has helped me see writing differently. William Zinsser included an abundance of detailed quotes and stories, many of which I still remember now. It was a joy to read.
That brings me to what I've been up to in the last two weeks. I seem to have a very hard time "doing one thing." I often start a project, work on it a few days to a few weeks, then forget about it. Abandon wouldn't be the right word so much as "being taken" by something else.
Two weeks ago, I decided to move away from the internet. To take that which I was inviting to overwhelm me, over and over again, and move it into a tiny window in my apartment. What I did was turn the internet off. I enjoyed it, and it gave me a clarity of mind that I hadn't felt in months. I'd keep a list of things I wanted to do on the internet, and when the list became long enough, I'd turn it on to tackle them.
That worked for about a week. At some point, I thought of a programming project that I attempted a few times before (I am cursed to think of programming projects.) This year, it was to be my third attempt.
I have for a long time desired the existence of a better alternative to torrents, and on paper this project was exactly what I wanted. A Kademlia DHT, content-addressed with verified streaming1 and with full support for mixed storage and external providers like S3. It would have all the things we struggle to do with torrents today. In a sense, it is closer to IPFS2, but without a "hidden" chunked store, much more lightweight, and keeping to the user experience torrent clients have today.
I decided to use AI to develop it this time, something I do on and off for programming. (No, there's no AI on this page—all dashes written by yours truly.) The proof of concept was ready in two days, and then I started working on it less and less, until I shelved it. On Saturday I bought Timberborn, and the rest is history.
With only these two examples, I think you'll come to the same conclusion I have come to many times: I lack self-restraint, and once the motivation for something is gone, I'd rather do something else than put in effort. I will keep looking for a way out, but in the meantime, I'll go look for something new to do (when I find the energy).
In an effort not to have this post sentenced to eternal helldraft status, I'll post it without a few days of editing.
PS: A big thank-you to scribblypam for the email, and for this amazing site linked on their BearBlog.