Writing on For Your Consideration

A Quiet August Night

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 20:33:36 -0400

A quiet August night teems with sound. Drowsy birds chirp in the twilight while a motley choir of insects let their faint buzzing overwhelm the warm air once one pays them attention. An occasional croak rises into overt awareness, rumbling its way above the rustling of squirrels and chipmunks in trees overhead. What else is out there? I know not, safely perched as I am on a porch with lights and devices to expel the most unsavory of small characters this evening.

Creative Kids Abound

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:21:32 -0400

I had the pleasure of running a brief summer seminar for the online private school I’ve contracted with the last five years. It was a total of six sessions spread across three weeks, each only thirty minutes. The topic was Choose Your Own Adventure, and the handful of kids sure did exactly that.

My intention was for them to create a second-person narrative in Google Slides, allowing them to easily link to different scenes within the deck. It’s a low-effort way to begin that narrows the focus on the mechanics of their story. We would have planning time, some writing time, some revision time, and cap it off by getting a quick demo of whatever they had made. We loosely followed that core plan, but what the students chose to create during this time was all over the place in the best way.

The New Yorker

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 10:08:59 -0400

I’m enamored by The New Yorker. It’s available via the Apple News+ subscription that Erin and I share as part of a broader service package, and indeed it’s one of the few publications I follow on that app. But I’ve spent little time reading any of its eclectic writing. I had only a vague awareness of its history, and had seen plenty of its comics.

The miasma of information I’d gathered but hadn’t yet assimilated about The New Yorker came together after Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz published a detailed profile of Sam Altman. I read it all, then read the interview transcript of Farrow’s appearance on the excellent Decoder podcast with Nilay Patel of The Verge. Since then, I’ve read The New Yorker’s Wikipedia page, poked through their archives, saved the landmark “Hiroshima” report from 1946 to read later, and recently followed a link to the hilarious “Coyote V. Acme” piece.¹

Leaving Grammarly

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 19:37:42 -0400

Before moving my blog, I’d been rethinking my writing process. As I noted several months ago, I want to relieve the pressure of pushing out posts on a regular schedule by focusing on improvement and quality. That means recognizing that I earn nothing by writing faster, and that I have to actively engage with my prose. It means following a thorough process of writing and revision while not losing the intuition and nose for what feels right. It means reminding myself that patience and perseverance are always rewarding.

Longreads and The Atavist

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 10:09:34 -0400

I adore niche corners of the internet. Small projects, independent developers, targeted publications, and so much else can only exist because the internet helps them connect to a sufficiently large captive audience. So many companies and industries view the internet as a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos—who can capture the most delicious little spherical bits of yummy data? My kinds of people aren’t trying to win capitalism and aren’t pushed by metrics besides “Am I making something cool?” and “Can I find just enough people who also think it’s cool?”

Creating a Baseball Newsletter

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

I volunteered to revive the newsletter for the Connecticut “Smoky Joe Wood” chapter of SABR, and successfully sent out its first new edition last week.

You can access it here.

This was so much fun to create. I had minimal guidance and effectively carte blance from our chapter president. That was a bit intimidating, but I started with editions from the previous editor to guide my design. More directly, I ripped it off as closely as I could in Affinity. I had to relearn the basics of desktop publishing while I figured out how badly I wanted to do this “the right way” with master pages and repeatable formatting. I made mistakes, learned how to fix them, and am pleased with the overall design. Graphics and layout are not my passion nor my strong suit, but I got the job done.

Big Blog Update

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:18:28 -0400

I moved my blog from WordPress.com to Bluehost and the open-source version of the WordPress engine back in 2018. I wanted more control, and wasn’t willing to pay the Automattic folks for the right to add more plugins to my blog. Instead, I probably paid even more money to a different corporation because, well, it felt better.

Technology has evolved, and I’ve decided to move backwards and save some money. With three or four hours of work, I migrated my entire blog off WordPress and into Hugo, a lightweight static blogging engine that relies directly on Markdown. The files live in GitHub (for free) and are subsequently hosted on Netlify at their free tier, saving me a couple of hundred dollars each year.¹

Claude Built Me a Markdown Reader

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Core to my effort to improve this blog and my writing more generally is a better revision process. I now use tools to catch mechanical errors or to point out when I’ve slipped into passive voice accidentally, but that doesn’t address the flow of prose, the feel of the words washing over the reader. Reading out loud is a superb way to improve, but I’m not always in a position to do that.

State of the Blog 2025

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Stephen Hackett briefly discussed some changes to 512 Pixels on last week’s episode of Connected. Some of those thoughts temporarily live on his Now page. Here’s the main thrust:

… my hope is to have fewer — but more meaningful — things in the RSS feed in 2026.

He also mentioned putting this on the Now page rather than in a separate post because he can’t bring himself to blog about his own blogging. Few people read my site, so I have no such reluctance.

NaNoWriMo 2025 Recap

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I thoroughly failed this year, but I learned two connected lessons:

I will always have distractions from writing.
Writing projects require consistency.

Distractions in life are a given. Friends and family visit us, we go visit family, people randomly invite us to some local event, and unexpected projects appear. My own hobbies distract me from my other hobbies. So much can demand my time and attention, and I have to prioritize where to place my effort.

Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The secret to writing is never held in a book explicitly about writing. Rather, it’s in the collective hours and thousands of pages spent reading anything one can get their hands on. It’s in the act of noticing how an author’s actions work, of forming opinions about whether a bit of prose succeeded in accomplishing its goal, so one can determine whether it’s a new tool to emulate or an ineffective path to avoid. Then, it’s in the act of writing. Of joyously beginning with a clear approach, then hitting heads against walls, falling into despair, becoming convinced the whole effort is worthless, and coming out the other side with a workable bit of narration. Do that over and over, while also reading, while also exploring the world, and one may just become a writer.

Local LLM Thesaurus

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s always more fun to work on something other than what I should explicitly be doing in the moment, so ideas and small projects naturally arise from procrastination. I was having trouble returning to my NaNoWriMo work after my sisters visited last weekend, and I took fifteen minutes to learn how to locally run an LLM.

My ninety percent use-case for LLMs is word refinement. While writing I will get a word stuck in my head, the wrong word for the exact feeling I’d like to describe. So, I tell some LLM (often Claude) to provide several more synonyms with varying connotations. This doesn’t rely on having up-to-date knowledge or internet access, so a nimble, offline, and local LLM would fit the task perfectly.

My 2025 NaNoWriMo Plan

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

NaNoWriMo, the organization, is on the ropes, or perhaps entirely dead, after a change in focus and an AI-related public relations snafu. None of that affects my plan for participating in the core of the event: writing at least 50,000 words in a month.

I initially wrote this post with the intention of delaying NaNoWriMo until February. This November will be hectic: I’m transitioning roles at work, we have visitors for two long weekends, followed immediately by a trip home for Thanksgiving. The likelihood that I will write 50,000 cohesive words in November is slim.

Summer 2025 Writing Process Update

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Each time I commit to sharing my writing process, I jinx myself to undergo a radical change within a month. Yet, my hubris tells me that this update is different.

Revisiting Morning Pages

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I discussed morning pages just over one year ago when I was one month into the practice and, as it turned out, one month away from dropping it. My last set of morning pages was July 27, 2024.

I’ve been in a creative rut over the last couple months, often writing blog posts last-minute, not making progress on other projects, and not even taking time to read consistently. It’s hard to pin down a cause but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t try a treatment. I’ve written 1000 words of morning pages each day of the past week, having made two changes that I hope will help it stick.

The Lyttle Lytton Contest

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This delightful contest celebrating the command of language by constructing concise opening sentences to hypothetical novels bursts into my awareness each year as internet denizens share the best (worst?) entries. Nominees display subtlety and nuance by brazenly breaking as many written and unwritten literary rules as possible with fewer than 200 characters.

This contest appears built for social media, despite starting in 2001. It drives to the core of good and bad writing by isolating a single sentence, perhaps two, given only the context that it begins a book you’ve just plucked off the shelf. The analysis of each worthy submission is deep and, most importantly, funny.

My First Article For the SABR Games Project

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I rejoined SABR a couple of years ago and focused my volunteer work on fact-checking articles for the Games Project. These accounts of past MLB games are notable in some context of the author’s choice. They could be historically impactful, meaningful within a player’s career, highlighted by a rare event, or any other such factors that make an otherwise mundane day in baseball history something worth remembering.

Last month I decided to try writing one of these articles. I trawled through the archives of Minnesota Twins history for interesting seasons and landed on an early game in 2009 that defined the year for Jason Kubel.

The Performer

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I initially drafted this story as part of a broader writing effort related to The Last Question. All the idiocy happening in the US government and in the world of large corporations encouraged me to finish it.

You can also find it on my fiction writing site.

Review: An Update on LLM Satire

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I gave Claude (3.7 Sonnet) the same prompt I provided ChatGPT two years ago: Write a short article in the satirical style of The Onion, titled “Optimistic AI Just Happy to Be Here”.

I also went back to ChatGPT to see how it has improved.

Claude’s attempt.

Two Good Essays

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

These are two essays by a couple of “guys on the Internet” whose work I enjoy. John Gruber created Markdown and now works in the Apple/tech media space. Merlin Mann used to be Merlin Mann, one of the first modern productivity gurus. Now, he’s essentially a comedic personality. Both are tremendous writers, and these two essays are supremely affecting and have unique styles that show the authors flexing their muscles.

NaNoWriMo 2024 Results

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I did it. I was on the ropes a few times but always found the time, energy, and creative hook to keep my story, It’s Like Jazz, moving along and hitting the requisite 50,000 words.

NaNoWriMo 2024 Check In

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This has been a great experience so far. I had a great start, followed by a few rough days after a five-day trip to Denver. I caught up this past weekend and am back on track, though I’m looking to keep pushing hard because going home for Thanksgiving will only complicate my attempts to write.

Even with that said, I’m proud of what I’ve done so far. Compared to 2019, I’ve started building a better story. I’m more thoughtful about creating characters and pushing a plot forward. I certainly won’t have told a complete story by the end of the 50,000 words, but that’s not necessarily the goal.

NaNoWriMo 2024 Announcement

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m doing it again.

I plan to return to the basics for the first time since my initial attempt in 2019. I’ll be sitting at any number of devices—I have half a mind to resurrect my old ThinkPad that runs Pop!_OS and make it a dedicated writing computer—and writing a new novel wholecloth. I feel both intimidated and energized by the prospect. I’ve been working hard on other side projects, including writing blog posts in advance, to make sure I have the space to give this a good effort.

We Are So Back with iA Writer on the iPad

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With iOS and iPadOS 18 out, I decided to give iA Writer another shot on my iPad. I adore it on my MacBook, and it’s been frustrating not having a consistent interface for my personal writing.

Lo and behold, I discover that iA Writer has been properly working with Dropbox since May! Dropbox decided to hop aboard the “modern File Provider API” train, leading to a slightly worse experience than many years ago¹, but a significantly better experience than when using any Dropbox text file would result in errors and conflicted files.

A Presentation on Word Doodles

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year I wrote about doodling with words. Last month I expanded on the idea, turned it into a fun presentation, and presented to Erin’s lab for one of their meetings before we moved as a fun diversion. I used Keynote to put it together, and had a really fun time.

Enjoy.

Packing Up Stinks

Sat, 17 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

My thanks to Jack Prelutsky.

Packing! Oh, Packing!
I hate you, you stink.
I wish I could throw
All this stuff in the drink.
These terrible boxes
Are crowding my floor.
I’m getting so flustered
Each time through the door.

Packing! Oh, Packing!
You’re making me ill.
These thick cubes of cardboard
Are getting their fill.
The crumpling of paper,
The ripping of tape,
All makes me just want to
Run off and escape.

There's No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

AUSTIN, TEXAS—Staring deep beyond his bathroom mirror, George Kurtz, CEO of Crowdstrike, repeated “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” under his breath. He let his head drop and began absentmindedly splashing water on his face, hoping the bags under his eyes would disappear before the back-to-back-to-back interviews that began the next hour.

Looking back up, he wiped down his face with a nearby hand towel embroidered with the phrase “Keep Austin Weird” and forced a haggard smile across his face.

Morning Pages

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I began writing morning pages in June. I first came across the concept via Pagi when they made a post about it being rejected by App Store review. It was a funny way to be introduced to a new creative method, but I didn’t give it additional attention. The idea was tossed into some filing cabinet in my memory.

Morning pages resurfaced in the second episode of Paper Places, a new podcast about writing on Relay FM. Hearing a conversation with actual writers let me more fully connect with the practice, and I decided to give it a shot. Every morning since June 3rd, I’ve taken time in the morning—not first thing, I do my puzzles before anything else—to sit down at a device¹ and write about 1000 words, letting whatever pops into my head flow onto the page.

Doodling With Words

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Doodling is more than scrawling sketches and shapes in the margins of your notes. It encompasses any idle, unguided, and spontaneous bursts of creativity.¹ In a light-bulb moment a few months ago I rediscovered my love of doodling with words, and it’s now something I try to do when I have spare time. Doodling is a phenomenal way to passively develop a skill while enjoying the process.

Local Business to Make Play for Enterprise

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ELKHART, INDIANA—John Wheedle, founder and owner of Wheedle & Sons Whittling, presented his plan to “go after the big market, starting with those hotshots down in Fort Wayne” during a gathering of business professionals and entrepreneurs at the Elkhart Community Center.

The evening’s theme was Aim for the Stars. Group members were encouraged to present on ambitious, long-term plans and then receive constructive feedback. Wheedle was third to go. On his way up to the podium, several attendees recall him saying “This is going to knock their socks off.”

Writing With Care

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I read a short dialogue with the previously-mentioned Frederick Hess, in which he complains about researchers intentionally obfuscating their ideas behind a wall of jargon. He argues that plain writing, using diction that is clear and precise, is the ideal way to present ideas. Anything else is grandiose and an attempt at an appeal to authority. While I don’t agree with several details in that discussion, or the flippant attacks hidden among the core of his argument, there is insight worth exploring.

George Saunders and Writing Better

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Two authors have had an outsized impact on my continued desire to hone my writing craft: Kurt Vonnegut and George Saunders. At the end of 2023 I read Lincoln in the Bardo and completed Liberation Day to begin 2024, both by Saunders, so he is front of mind.

A New Place for Fiction

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve created a new website, markrichard-fiction.org. I’ll reference any stories or other writing I post there on this blog, but they’ll mainly be hosted there. It’s using the Write.as service, which is a sleek and quick spot to make an incredibly simple blog. I wanted to separate what I write here—almost exclusively blog and essay fare—from stranger projects I hope to undertake.

The Appeal of Pageless Documents

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Today I discovered that Google Docs has supported pageless documents for over a year and a half. I learned this at precisely the right time, and now I’m rethinking how I handle many of my digital documents.

NaNoWriMo 2023 Recap

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I just completed my NaNoWriMo project for 2023. I wrote three stories for The Last Question world in thirty days, totaling 30,984 words. You can find the drafts on the NaNoWriMo page of this blog, with the caveat that they are indeed drafts. Let’s get into how this all went.

NaNoWriMo 2023 Check In

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’m behind my 30,000 word goal, which is why I’m writing this post as a fallback instead of something longer and unrelated to NaNoWriMo. It’s still possible for me to maintain a pace that gets me done on time, but I haven’t been making as much progress in my free time as I’d like.

My biggest issue this year is that I’m still not allowing myself to write freely. I’m thinking a little too much in the moment, trying to self-edit, and not just getting a story out there that can be refined at a later date.

NaNoWriMo 2023 Announcement

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve done something for National Novel Writing Month each year since 2019. That first year was the only time I’ve “won” by getting to fifty thousand words, but I’ve always appreciated the exercise and change of pace required to make a reasonable attempt. November is just around the corner, so it’s time to consider my plans for this year’s effort.

(Another) iPad Writing Setup

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I switched back to Ulysses and refined the Writing homescreen on my iPad. I have no idea how long this particular setup will last considering the short time spent since I previously discussed this, but it feels stable, all my writing can live in a single app, and I can drop the dance I’d tried with iCloud to make iA Writer work across all my devices.

Going Back to iA Writer

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve finally decided to go back to using iA Writer on my iPad. This has several knock-on effects, with the most notable being that my drafts will all be synced via iCloud.

I say “drafts” because my plan is still to use Dropbox as long-term storage. I now have a monthly reminder to copy completed blog posts over to the proper spot in Dropbox¹ and will only use iCloud for in-progress work.

Five Years of Comical Start

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I released Episode 257 of Comical Start, Pockets of Conversation. Its publish date is just a few days after the 5th year anniversary of our first episode, Multiverse. Grant was unable to record with me, so here is a lightly-edited transcript¹ of the 25 minute monologue that I did off the dome.

MuseScore and the Democratization of Document Creation

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I find music scores to be absolutely beautiful documents. In middle school I was engrossed by creating my own music and, more importantly, writing it down. There’s video evidence of me being jazzed about receiving a “Lyricist’s Notebook” for Christmas around that time. I also recall purchasing a journal of staff paper for ambitious ideas I had. Yet turning musical ideas into something that can be shared, let alone something that would look good, felt out of reach. When the itch to create music struck me again last week I remembered a new-to-me program, MuseScore, that changed everything.

Bad Handwriting and Journaling

Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently in San Diego and decided not to fly with a fountain pen.¹ So when I sat down to journal I was back with my original roller-ball Retro 51 Tornado, and my handwriting was awful. It helped me realize how intentional I still am while using a fountain pen, and how that encourages better journaling sessions.

Going back to a traditional pen kicked my brain into a rapid jotting gear that spewed rough characters and jagged sentences all over the page. These entries were initially shorter and had reduced impact. Once I realized what was happening, I took additional care to write slowly and focus on my handwriting. This had a knock-on effect of making me think intentionally about my day and allowing the journaling sessions to improve.

Dynamic Content and Curriculum

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Textbooks have been the premier mechanism for presenting curriculum for centuries. While the printed word is powerful and, for many people, superior to digital versions, the physicality of textbooks requires that their content remains static. Errors are inevitable, as are changes in relevant topics or pedagogy. New editions are the only tool to fight against the decay of a textbook’s utility.¹ In an educational landscape dominated by digital tools, it’s tempting to have content updated rapidly and frequently. This approach requires a deft hand.

Spring 2023 Writing Setup

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I wrote about my setup for various writing projects. It’s changed a bit since then, and is still not particularly robust. Consider this a report on the state of the world.

Writing and Thinking

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When you think something, what precisely are you doing? Does the thought take shape in your head, or does it only coalesce as it’s put in a communicable form? About once a year, I go down a little rabbit hole of curiosity regarding language, communication, and the meaning of thought. Here I go again.

Building a World

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After procrastinating on NaNoWriMo 2022 to a sufficient degree that it has just become another story I hope to finish at some point, this week I’ve turned my attention back to The Last Question, which was my world of choice for NaNoWriMo 2021. I have some ideas for where I’d like to go next.

NaNoWriMo 2022 Check In

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As is now tradition, I’m giving some attempt to National Novel Writing Month. And, as mentioned in my post about getting into fountain pens, I’m doing it by hand in a notebook.¹

A New Writing Implement

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It’s an odd experience drafting a blog post on paper, but here we are.

A Potential Change to This Blog

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Whenever I think about this blog, I feel slightly disappointed in myself. My internal impression is that many of the posts are written at the last minute about nothing with any lasting interest. Most frustratingly, I want this blog to be a tool to improve my writing and communication, yet I’m not convinced I’ve set up a framework that lends itself to that goal. I began to think about a change.

Kurt Vonnegut

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I first started drafting this post in January of this year. As time has gone by, and it’s been yet a little bit longer since I stormed my way through many of Vonnegut’s novels, my words feel increasingly inadequate to describe how much I admire and enjoy this great American writer. So it goes.