I used the full utility belt this week. I wrote some posts long form, I did some voice dictation, I wrote with my Chromebook, I wrote at my desk, I wrote on the bus with my phone, I wrote notes about audio books, right now it’s about Kindle books, and I’ve been reading a hard copy book.
In some ways I’m shocked that I’ve gotten this far. I took the time to read a few older posts. They’re not worthless. there’s something there. and as a collective thing, I’m pretty happy with it how things are coming together. I’ve started thinking about what to do after I reach 100 posts. Like considering whether it’d be too show off-y to get a special hook for my apartment to hang the incoming Pulitzer Prize.
Navigation is top of mind. I doubt anyone is going to read the posts from beginning to end. They’re more likely to have interest in certain types of posts. I can see someone liking a book notes posts and trying to find all the books I’ve written notes up for. And then there are journal-type posts like this one. I can have something on writing, something on Fitness, something on meditation, etc. I can put some reading packs together. If you didn’t close this tab in disgust, you might like these other 5 posts.
It crossed my mind that I can try to code this in Jekyll. I have the insight to also see the black hole of tinkering that could turn into. There are WordPress plugins that automate this, and it wouldn’t be too hard to convert the entire thing to WordPress. Hey, another black hole. If I’m thinking MVP, I can just make more posts explaining the different hand-curated1 collections.
We’ll see when I actually sit down and see what I want to do for this.
Very late thursday night (Friday morning): I wrote a post with my voice, can you tell which one it is? Dictation could be a good way to do the initial brain vomit. You can get to two crappy pages awfully fast by speaking into your phone.
I wonder what the quality difference is for these two scenarios:
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15 minutes to dictate a very very sloppy first draft, 30 minutes of editing
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30 minutes to write a somewhat sloppy first draft, 15 minutes of editing
There would be a quantity difference as well—though that’s already into quality. If the quantity is higher through dictating but the amount of fluff is higher as well then that’s no good.
Actual Friday morning: Instead of writing, I just spent probably an hour messing with my monitor again. And it’s frustrating wasting time on these things that don’t really matter all that much. I just wanted to write this morning and instead I was messing around with resolutions, then an hour was long gone.
I have 21 posts left. I have 13 days left. This weekend will be important for banging out a few extra posts to make up the difference. There are some and drafts late so I’ll be able to work on those and I feel good about completing them. It be nice if I could get it down to one post per day in the final week so that my final we can really just follow the original schedule. So do that I will need to get to 10 posts with 10 days left. So I’ll have to do 11 posts in the next 3 days. When will the trains crash into each other?
I have an idea how I can get that done. I have enough ideas for topics. I have a large backlog of Kindle highlights. One of the lengthier parts of writing a book notes post is reading the book in the first place.
Sunday
10-ish AM: I I’m in the coffee place in probably looks like I’m talking to myself. But I’m writing. I am dictating at least. I had an iced coffee with almond milk. Actually this microphone is not picking up when I want to say so I’m going to work on my Chromebook
I’ve got a free day, it’s way too hot out, so I’m going to do some major catching up to do some major catching up today. My goal is to get to 10 posts left in 10 days. This morning I’ll be editing some drafts. I’ll finish these posts then take a break to run.
1:30 PM: I made good progress. I finished editing these posts:
In the afternoon, I’m hoping to start and finish a few more posts. They’re going to be journal posts:
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Sunday journal: what you’re reading right now
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Meditation: impressions after finishing the first series in Headspace
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Running: finishing the first 6 sessions of Couch to 5K and why it’s been awesome and terrible (working title)
If I have anything left in the tank I’ll do a little more sprinting on the front page:
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Crazy 8s: I want to think even further about what I can do on the front page to display the 100 posts when they’re complete
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Prototyping: I want to explore things and do a screen recording session with either Sketch or Google Slides
5:00 PM: Instead of working on any of that, I wrote a post on a few passages I highlighted in Infinite Jest. Enjoyed writing it, mostly because I enjoyed going through all those highlights again.
Bought some clams and boquerones. Going to eat these then finish up the journal posts. (Oh, and start them.)
11:00 PM: Okay I started writing the Couch to 5K journal about running. After stopping for a few other important things, I got back to editing the post and finished it. Check it out. One of those things was stopping to watch most important running event there is: 100m at the Olympics.
It was looking a little bleak around halfway through. Wasn’t sure how things would look at the finish line. However, I’m back on track: 10 posts, 10 days. I didn’t finish the meditation journal or either of the exercises for the front page design, but at least I know what’s next in the queue.
Current total of all the posts is about 63,000 words.
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In the way those wacky museums of useless things still must have some kind of curator. ↩