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gnat (29)

gnat
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Journal of gnat (29)

Thursday January 24, 2002
01:39 AM

Expectations v reality

[ #2367 ]
I wrote 25 pages yesterday. I worked on it from when I got up at 9am, to when I went to sleep around 2am, with a break from 6pm to 9pm for dinner and family. I did other things during the day, of course, but nothing major.

25 pages, in about 14 hours. It seems like when you look at a page, that page would take you about 5 minutes to type out. But writing it and typing it are apparently two different things.

I never cease to be amazed at how slow writing goes. I have such unrealistic expectations, and that too amazes me. You'd think by now I'd know, but I guess not.

That's not to say I have much patience with the people who take two years to write a book. I'm churning out a chapter every day or two, people, working full-time on it. Even part-time it shouldn't take you two years!

Oh well, back to the grind ...

Nat


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  • I imagine it also depends on how much research one is doing as well; whether it's just documenting or developing theories and so on.

    But what would I know? I'm not published =)
    --
      ---ict / Spoon

    • Re:Speed (Score:3, Informative)

      by gnat (29)
      Right. I'm doing 25 pages a day because they're straight documentation, with very little research involved. I bog right down as soon as I get to something that doesn't work as advertised, or I need to scruffle through the source.

      --Nat

  • I'm very interested by this subject,
    I'm not talking about knowledge but rather "social" aspect...

    Do you tend to be more productive when everything is ok, are you better when you feel insecure ?
    or is it totally unrelated ?

    I'd also like to know when you did know that you should write ?
    When did you feel you was able to do it ?
    What was the initial cause that made you act ?

    I'v also a lot of other questions :
    What factors improved/decreased your ability so write quickly ?
    Is writing a pleasant task for
    • I don't have specific memories in mind, but my gut feeling is that I turn to jelly when my life isn't going well, and writing suffers. I remember freaking out about work stuff at my last job, and became a totally dysfunctional wreck for a week or two. I've since learned the importance of blood sugar levels and that doesn't happen nearly so often now :-) I'm putting off questions about the work I'll do after this book, in case the answer is "straight into another with no rest for you!", because I don't wa
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