Hacker News Reader

Comment by quanticle | Hacker News Reader

Just for once, I'd like to see some prominent (or even not so prominent) person embark on a New Year's resolution to write less.

View on HN

I've definitely seen this sentiment. It's in avoiding burnout. It's in noticing that one is going hard but the returns just aren't there and focusing instead on onesself or their family. But of course this isn't going to be written down about ;)

I guess my reaction is more about the fact that writing more is an instrumental goal, rather than a terminal goal. Writing is a tool. It is not an end in itself. Saying, "I want to write more," is like saying, "I want to buy more flour." Okay, sure, but what are you buying the flour for? Bread? Cookies? Cake? Just throwing into the air and making a mess? Similarly, writing more is a goal that only makes sense if you have some goal in mind and see writing as a tool to accomplish that goal. Otherwise, "I want to write more," is a goal that's so vague, it becomes impossible to achieve.

I disagree. One can also want to write more as an end itself, simply to become a better writer.

    I disagree. One can also want to write more as an end itself, simply to
    become a better writer.

You've contradicted yourself. Writing to become a better writer is a goal that's different than writing as an end in itself. Moreover, writing just for the sake of writing is not a very good way to become a better writer. Using word count goals to improve one's writing is like counting the number of times you kick a ball each day and using that as a measure of your progress as a soccer player.

Well, that would be a measure.

The number of lay-ups you do each day as a measure of basketball.

The number of miles run as the measure of my ability to finish a marathon.

As you write, you'd become better at getting ideas out of your head. Regardless of the grammar/vocabulary. You would be better at the act.

Read the article. This author’s specific goal is 500 words a day. There is nothing vague about that!

For example, in my own journaling today, I’ve written 646 words. So clearly the goal is not “impossible to achieve”, as you’ve claimed.

    This author’s specific goal is 500 words a day. There is nothing vague about
    that!

It's extremely vague. It's like saying, "I wish to turn a screwdriver five hundred times today." It's reasonable to ask, "For what purpose are you turning the screwdriver?"

    For example, in my own journaling today, I’ve written 646 words. So clearly
    the goal is not “impossible to achieve”, as you’ve claimed.

And what terminal goal are you trying to achieve with this journal? And why is necessary for you to write > 500 per day to achieve that goal?

It's in the article. Literally under the "Why" paragraph.

I presume this is the passage you're referring to:

    The problem is that I’m not getting much better at unprompted creative
    work. Observing problems and solving them, coming up with ideas and
    executing… those opportunities come few and far between in the university
    classroom.

The problem is that writing is a total non sequitir of a answer to, "How can I get better at unprompted creative work?" There are lots of other things, from painting to programming to just going on walks that could make one better at unprompted creative work. So my question stands. Why writing? And why writing 500 words, specifically?

Literally two lines below

> But I’ve decided it’s time to take my creative development into my own hands and I’m starting with writing.

He's starting with writing. He didn't say that writing is the only way to be more creative. Just that the author has decided to start with writing. Because you gotta start somewhere and he already has a blog.

  >It's extremely vague. It's like saying, "I wish to turn a screwdriver five hundred times today." It's reasonable to ask, "For what purpose are you turning the screwdriver?" ... what terminal goal are you trying to achieve with this journal? And why is necessary for you to write > 500 per day to achieve that goal?

On the chance that you are asking these questions in good faith, I can point you to a very deep and well written counter argument to your stance. Among his 20 or so other books, The prolific Japanese Author Haruki Murakami has written a book: Novelist as a Vocation. I encourage you to read it in whole, as my attempts to summarize will only take it out of context and butcher it. However, I will say that Haruki lays out the personal opinion that for him consistency is the bedrock of his writing practice. That above all, he sees writing as a daily commitment. He strives for 2,000 words a day. He typically takes on one wholly creative work at a time, such as the next novel. On days he just doesn't feel passionate about that project, he will translate works from English to Japanese until the passion for the project naturally returns. He makes the argument that the days he spends translating give him time to think and digest the next steps in his novel while also allowing him to keep a whole collection of "writer's habits".

---

You can argue that his methods don't seem right for you... but you can hardly argue that his methods aren't right for him (and perhaps others).

Writing can be therapy.

It can be a process where one learns by trying to explain it to someone else (the reader) so it helps to find holes in your argument or thinking.

It’s a tool used daily to communicate - arguably the greatest invention of mankind.

There are plenty of reasons to write.

None of those things translate into a specific word count goal. That's the thing I'm specifically pushing back on here. Word count goals for a journal or blog or some other personal writing project make no sense. If you have to finish a book, and there's a specific deadline that you need to have that project done by, then a word count goal can be helpful in pushing you to make forward progress towards that objective. But for journaling? A word-count goal is a cargo-cult practice.

I'm not prominent at all (which I think is a fact about me that I like so have no desire to change), and this is not specifically a new year based resolution (it is a decision I came to a while ago), but I'm actively trying to stop trying (well, planning) to do so much.

The reason: I find myself getting frustrated at the ever elongating list of things I might like to do/develop/improve in all my walks of life, and the fact that I try to do so many of the things on that list means I never seent to do (or even properly start) any one thing particularly well.

I miss the focus I had at certain points earlier in life when time seemed less at a premium and I would just spend a complete weekend tinkering on a personal project and on feel guilty about missing anything else. I miss the focus I had ahead of my first marathon, that allowed me to find the many blocks of time needed to more-or-less follow a decent training plan, particularly now as I want to return to my pre-covid-and-long-recovery levels of "fitness & not being overweight".

Of course I'm bending the resolution right now as part of it is to spend less time commenting in discussion threads and more time concentrating on my own stuff (little tech projects, fixing my home up a bit, getting out for runs and bits of cross-training, wasting time with friends instead of online, etc.).

Of course there might be many who embark on a resolution to write less, who you don't see talking about it because not posting about it is one of the first steps to achieving it!

The author of The Wandering Inn [1], a web serial, has been trying to write less the past few months (the past year?). They peaked around 80k words/week, and have been aiming closer to 30-40k words/week with more breaks. They've had mixed success (e.g. last week they wrote and released 70k).

They only post updates/reflections on their progress towards this goal in the author's notes on the biweekly chapter releases, so I'm not sure how you could follow along, if that's what you're looking for. I guess you could just follow the releases and only read the notes. Or you could try catching up haha.

[1] https://wanderinginn.com/

I was just thinking the same thing!

I think I use writing as an excuse to procrastinate, so this coming year my goal is to release useful products rather than blog posts.

Hear hear. Isn't anyone exhausted of blasting their lives on the internet?

That would be impossible for me :-). Unless I sabotage other blogs for a negative word count.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com