Week 1566

A rediscovery this week: when it comes to writing—specifically when it comes to making progress on a big piece of writing, like Pilgrim—there is an order-of-magnitude difference between a session of one or two hours and a session of three or four. There's just something about that span. It's the amount of time I need to load the program—it's like the icon is still bouncing in the dock 'til hour two, and then... ta-da. I think it's closely related to the difference between reading word-by-word and reading in flow. You know what I'm talking about: the words melt away, the movie plays. That's the good stuff.

Working in a cafe helps me understand the difference. While the program is still loading, I am of course totally interested in my surroundings—faces and book-jackets and conversations overheard. But after hour two? I become, to my delight, the weird person in the room: oblivious to everything around me, lost in the screen, mouth moving silently. (Just a little bit.)

The point is: I managed several four-hour (and longer) writing sessions this week and they were hugely productive. What a joy.

(I don't want to make it sound like ooh magical writing. It's still mostly just banging things out and writing "[[X]]" when I can't think of the right word or "[[SOMETHING]]" when I can't think of the right... something. [You've never seen my roughest drafts; they're full of these placeholders, like variables.] It's just that, in the third hour and beyond, it all picks up speed dramatically—like I've finally escaped some gravity well.)

In other news.

I added a new tool this week: a simple logbook, not intended for idea-capture (that's the iPhone) or reflection (that's this) but rather the very basics: what I did and what I ate.

It is cheap and tiny (3" × 5") and entirely un-precious. All data, no poetry.

This week I fired up Xcode twice, vaguely intending to fiddle with the new iPad stuff, and then forced myself to shut it down immediately both times. Focus. There will be time for that later.

I start at Twitter on Tuesday! Hmm: how many four-hour writing sessions do you think I can pack in between now and then?

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