Writing

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 ...

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

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. ...

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. ...

Two months ago I revisited The Last Question, a basic RPG I wrote at the start of the pandemic. A group of friends has agreed to start an actual campaign with me later this year — we’ve had trouble finding a good time to get started — so I decided to retool the game itself. I wasn’t happy with the initial set of mechanics; it didn’t seem to mesh with the intent of the game. ...

I’ve been journaling consistently for a few months, and it felt like a good time to quickly reflect on how this habit has grown. I’ve been using the app Journey to give me a daily prompt for a gratitude statement, just a single sentence, and have handwritten in a journal each evening. I made it through a Moleskin notebook by the end of February, and have since upgraded to a Rhodia WebNotebook. It’s a huge upgrade in quality, particularly since I’m using a nice rollerball pen that bled through the Moleskin pages. ...

I’ve watched and listened to hours of disc golf content across YouTube and podcasts over the past few years. Since I started playing about 9 months ago, an increased portion of that has been focused on instructional content: specific videos about form, techniques, tips and tricks, anything to help me feel more comfortable and consistent on the course. Just like with regular golf, putting is the most frustrating aspect of the game. Particularly in disc golf, where you are approaching this relatively large basket and all you need to do is throw the disc in from 20 or 30 feet (ideally), it looks childishly easy. Yet I have a lot of trouble with consistency. Sure, I can make a few, but overall I’m missing in pretty much every possible direction during my round. In fact, both on the course and during my warmup I am practicing how to miss. ...

My older sister gave me a lovely leather-bound journal one month into sixth grade, when all students in my grade went on a week-long trip to a nature center called Eagle Bluff. She encouraged me to use it to keep track of the experience, and I wrote in that journal for most of the next year or two. Looking back, many entries were a bit dramatic, but I think they were accurate to how I felt at the time. It was my first time using a journal, and in particular my first time doing serious introspection. I enjoyed the process, but eventually lost the habit and didn’t try to pick it back up regularly until college. ...

I failed. There was a part of me that anticipated this. In 2019, I was almost finished by Thanksgiving, which was important since I wouldn’t be able to do much writing that week. This year, I was “on pace” by the time Thanksgiving week rolled around, and I had very little time or focus to continue writing. I ended up reaching just over 30,000 words in November, and finished three of the six stories I was aiming to write. However, I’m happy with the basic drafts of those three, and am still motivated to keep writing the others. I can make the time to do so, even if it isn’t under the auspice of NaNoWriMo. I won’t be updating the NaNoWriMo page though, as the PDF linked there is a record of my actual progress during the month.

I finally bought a couple Subtle Notebooks from Cortex Brand. I won’t go into their whole deal; I’d like to just focus on this particular product. I’m a notebook hoarder. I’ve always enjoyed having journals around, with different shapes, paper types, and cover styles. Admittedly, many of these are still blank, or only partially filled. Some of them have a specific use-case that has run its course (or has been extensively delayed), while others are too nice, too boring, or just don’t feel quite right for some things I have in mind. ...