Reset button

It happened again: scope creep. When I re-started regularly blogging here in 2023 with Ignore previous instructions and resume shitposting I specifically said I would avoid the trap of only writing serious and thoughtful posts, because as we all know from that anecdote about the pottery class, the way you get good work is not by trying to produce good work but by producing a lot and then some of it will be good, and more overall works will be produced than if you just tried to produce one perfect thing.

I backed myself into a corner, being too serious. That's particularly problematic when you actually want to write serious things, which I have been. Then I had the great idea that I could shift my writing schedule to write and post over the weekend instead of writing on Thursday and the posting on Friday. Didn't work. All I wanted to do the last few weekends was work in my garden. At least I wrote about gardening, but, I didn't ever get around to sharing that post anywhere so only the most dedicated RSS followers saw it.

By the way, did you know this blog has an RSS feed? It does! It goes out automatically. I also send it out through a newsletter, but sometimes I forget to send a newsletter. I think I have like a 95% rate of remembering to send the newsletter, so it's pretty good, really?

What I've been up to instead of blogging #

First of all, gardening obviously. I have also been experimenting with esoteric techniques to trick myself into writing, specifically attempting to dictate voice to text notes for the thing I want to write about, like I'm a Star Trek captain doing the philosophical part of the Captain's Log. Voice to text is kind of OKish. Not really so good at live transcription, if I'm honest. But there are some tools that do a pretty good job of transcribing recordings. I'm trying out MacWhisper, which processes the speech locally. I don't quite understand the kind of AI/ML thing it is. I guess it's a large language model? Anyway it does a good job locally processing and transcribing stuff. I might do even more voice notes and transcription, though I will need a better microphone. I mostly want to record my notes when I'm walking. If I'm sitting down at home, I might as well pick up a computer and type.

I might write more about speech to text after I experiment some more.

I have continued to study Japanese. My pace slowed down but I'm still doing it and that's the important thing. If someone teleported me to Tokyo, I bet I could order food. At the very least, I could point to things and politely say "This thing, please," instead of just pointing to things.

I read the first book of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, which was fun and fine. I also read the last two books in Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series and tried, and failed, repeatedly to write about some ideas I picked up from it. I'm still working through them. Eventually they'll come together. It took me a long time to get my thoughts together about Derrida, too.

Write the Docs #

This week I attended the Write the Docs conference in Portland. The last time I attended in person was 2019. That was also the first time I attended. I remember how amazing it felt that first year. I had just landed my first technical writing job at an actual tech company, and I had so much to learn. I was the first and only tech writer, so the greater professional community was the only place I could learn from.

Six years later, even though I've learned and grown a ton as a technical writer, I found I was just as excited, and maybe more so! The more I've learned, the more I realized I still had to learn and the more capable I've become at absorbing more knowledge.

Haunted manuals lightning talk #

In addition to the planned, official speakers, Write the Docs also has lightning talks. Lightning talks are up to 5 minutes, and delivered with or without slides. At Write the Docs, they accept lightning talk submissions on the two days of the conference, and select 5 speakers each day. You find out if you've been chosen about an hour and a half before you speak. I waffled about whether or not I wanted to do a talk about something, and what thing. I tried to make some slides on Monday and kind of failed. Then, I impulsively submitted my talk proposal anyway, about 15 minutes before the Tuesday submission window closed. To my surprise and mild terror, my talk was selected.

I spent the lunch break putting together some rudimentary slides, which mostly ended up not working due to technical issues anyway, and some very basic speaker notes. I was so nervous that my smart watch kept alerting me my heart rate was high.

Then I went on stage, my slides mostly didn't work, and my speaker notes totally didn't work, and I had a fabulous time.

I love public speaking. It's a weird quirk. I'm scared of the concept of public speaking and before I am to speak I always get extremely nervous. However, when I actually get up and speak, I love it. I like it a lot more when I'm speaking before a live audience than when I'm presenting online. When I'm in front of an audience and they're looking at me, I can feel their energy and connect with them, and it helps me know what to say next. I feel their feelings and hear their reaction and it lets me know how to handle my pacing, too. The bigger the audience, the better, in my experience. Around 20 people is when it starts to feel good. 100 is great. That gets some real crowd energy and yet is small enough that you can connect with individuals. I think the biggest group I ever stood in front of was about 1,000, though it may have been more. I'm bad at estimating people after a certain amount, and that was poetry rather than speaking. There's probably a size where it starts to feel impersonal and you lose the connection. I don't think I'll ever have anything to say with enough public appeal that I'll find out what my max audience size is before I stop enjoying it.

I do wonder how many other people would actually enjoy public speaking if they tried it, but don't try it because they're scared beforehand and assume it will be just as miserable when it's happening.

My lightning talk was based on my haunted manuals blog post series, and I was surprised how much people seemed to enjoy it, even the Derrida jokes. I never did write that last post about new haunted manuals and hauntology, because I gave myself some more critical theory reading homework, which I have not yet completed. Considering how much the concepts resonated with people, maybe I should try writing what I can before I go and spend a few years reading more ponderous tomes first.

Recordings of all the talks, including lightning talks, will get posted in a few weeks. I'll post a link to my talk once it's up. It was so improvisational in the end, that I don't even know exactly what I said and I'm looking forward to finding out. Did I tell a bunch of technical writers that ontology is the study of onts? I hope so.

Resuming regularly scheduled programming #

So that's what I've been up to. Gardening, reading, public speaking, giving myself Derrida homework. I also have been doing my job, which, as I may have mentioned once or twice, involves quite a bit of writing and thinking.

However, life never really does get easier. Writing is simultaneously the hardest thing and the easiest thing for me to do. I never know which one it will be when I sit down. I never know how good the first draft will be, and I certainly don't know what people will like. They can't all be bangers, as the poet once said. So I'm taking the pressure off about any of that and reaffirming my commitment to just one rule: a new post every Friday.