Sometimes I start to write a quick take, and when it becomes too long I convert it to a post and continue writing. This helps me overcome a part of writer’s block, because starting the quick take does not feel like a serious decision: I am not committing to write a long coherent text.
I am not sure I remember correctly which of my posts started this way, but it seems like most of the recent ones:
First I assumed that the answer would be something like “my average comment is longer than yours, so my average quick take is more likely to be post-sized”, but from a brief look at our comment histories it doesn’t seem to be the case; I’d say our comments are comparable in length.
When I write comments, I am in a “reactive mode”—the text I have just read has triggered an emotion, and the emotion is driving my writing. I think as I write; when I am starting a comment I often have no idea how it would end. Sometimes the last paragraph even contradicts the first one.
When I write posts, I turn into a defensive perfectionist, I keep rewriting every sentence many times, and as a result, it takes me a day or two to write a post. Usually, after I finish it, I feel deeply dissatisfied with the outcome. Then I read it again the next day, and I conclude that it is okay.
The “start with a quick take, convert to post later” tactics allows me to channel the “reactive mode” energy into a post.
Perhaps you don’t have the same psychological problem (I am quite aware that my emotions about writing posts are irrational and harmful, but that doesn’t help to turn them off), and therefore this approach does not have the same effect for you.
Sometimes I start to write a quick take, and when it becomes too long I convert it to a post and continue writing. This helps me overcome a part of writer’s block, because starting the quick take does not feel like a serious decision: I am not committing to write a long coherent text.
I am not sure I remember correctly which of my posts started this way, but it seems like most of the recent ones:
Evaporation of improvements
Some comments on intelligence
An anti-inductive sequence
Trying to be rational for the wrong reasons
The first AI war will be in your computer
Learned helplessness about “teaching to the test”
This has effectively doubled my posting frequency. (And, guessing by positive karma, that is a good thing?)
Interesting! That seems like it makes a lot of sense. Now I’m wondering why that hasn’t happened with me.
I am wondering, too.
First I assumed that the answer would be something like “my average comment is longer than yours, so my average quick take is more likely to be post-sized”, but from a brief look at our comment histories it doesn’t seem to be the case; I’d say our comments are comparable in length.
When I write comments, I am in a “reactive mode”—the text I have just read has triggered an emotion, and the emotion is driving my writing. I think as I write; when I am starting a comment I often have no idea how it would end. Sometimes the last paragraph even contradicts the first one.
When I write posts, I turn into a defensive perfectionist, I keep rewriting every sentence many times, and as a result, it takes me a day or two to write a post. Usually, after I finish it, I feel deeply dissatisfied with the outcome. Then I read it again the next day, and I conclude that it is okay.
The “start with a quick take, convert to post later” tactics allows me to channel the “reactive mode” energy into a post.
Perhaps you don’t have the same psychological problem (I am quite aware that my emotions about writing posts are irrational and harmful, but that doesn’t help to turn them off), and therefore this approach does not have the same effect for you.