I use the Drafts app to capture notes on the go and my typical use case is to invoke it through a complication on my Apple Watch. I tap the mic icon, then dictate whatever witty/clever thought I want to record. Sometimes the voice dictation is not completely accurate, but I can usually get the gist of what I meant from context. I found the note below in Drafts and:
I have no recollection of making this note
I have no idea what it means. Bad voice transcription? Fever dream? Who can say? It feels like something an erratic AI would compose, with actual meaning just out of reach.
A mystery for the ages.
11 leaven 30 you might have a talk tonight 11 leaves 30 you might have a talk tonight
Not actual obsidian, though it would be totally cool if I could find some way to make an igneous rock keep my life organized.
In this case, it’s the Obsidian note-taking app, which promises “a second brain for you, forever.” This sounds suspiciously like promising immortality, but I’ll settle for just keeping all of my notes in a single location, so my current and only brain has an easier time remembering to find things.
Why Obsidian. Well, let’s face it, it’s a new (to me) app and I like new toys, so I had to try it out. There’s a mobile version that can sync over iCloud Drive, allowing me to make notes from any device, which is convenient. So far this doesn’t sound much different from other note-taking apps like OneNote or Evernote, but Obsidian also uses a plain folder structure and text files, so everything is portable and accessible through simple apps like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Because nothing is proprietary or stored in the cloud (unless you choose to put it there), your data is secure and yours alone. Obsidian also supports Markdown for quick formatting and has some features that promise to expand it beyond just a random collection of notes, such as:
Backlinking. Obsidian allows you to easily create links between notes, expanding what notes can do.
Plugins. Both core and community-made, extending the capabilities of the app.
Graph view. This visually shows relationships between notes.
Really, if I can just stick to Obsidian for all my note-taking, that would be a huge improvement over having to search for notes in OneNote, Ulysses, iA Writer, Drafts, the iOS Notes app, Notepad, Notepad++ and whatever else I’ve used over the years. None of these are bad programs–some of them I really enjoy using! But scattering my notes over all of them just makes it harder to find things, and stuff gets lost or forgotten. Or both. Lostgotten.
We’ll see how it goes, but I am cautiously optimistic that this is the beginning of some actual organization on my part and will usher in 2022: The Year of Really Fantastic Organization.
About ten days ago I went back to the idea of picking up on an unfinished NaNo project and re-read the 22,000 or so words of The Journal. And I liked it! Enough that I chose to pick it up, knowing I was unlikely to hit the 50,000 word goal, even with that head start.
But then the writing part never happened. I muddled about, then worked on other stuff. And so here we are with only three days left (including today) and unless I can manage 9,333 words per day, I will fall short. Alas.
But I think I will revisit The Journal, anyway, just on my own schedule, whatever that may be.
Technically, I didn’t actually “lose” NaNo 2021 because I never officially declared a project, but still, I feel bad. Fortunately, I have no cookies to console myself with, because I’d convince myself I need a lot of consoling, a lot of delicious chocolate chip-flavored consoling.
No, this isn’t about my effort or lack thereof during National Novel Writing Month (that will be another post), this is about a quote from an overview of various writing programs:
This program focuses on productivity, allowing you to successfully avoid the dreaded writer’s blocks.
First, I want to know, who is this dreaded writer?
Second, what’s up with his/her/their blocks? I understand wanting to avoid them–blocks sound like they could hurt–but what are they? What are they made of? Where do they come from? Can I get some and also become a dreaded writer?
Bonus observation: Why do so many pages covering writing apps have such poor writing? Is it meant to be ironic? Have the authors of these pieces suffered from too many of the dreaded writer’s blocks?
A visual representation of my effort so far this month:
I’d like to say I’ve been busy with other things, and that is true, to a degree. I’ve also been horribly distracted by stuff outside my control. I’m willing to still give this a go two weeks late, so come Monday I’ll provide Update #3, which will tell the tale of whether I actually wrote something. It could happen!
I’ve posted this before and I don’t care, I’m posting it again, because I adore this absurd image, and it’s exactly how I picture myself writing a novel if I was, in fact, a cat.
About a month ago I wondered if I would do Inktober this year and voilà! I did a drawing on the first day.
I then did no further drawings, going 1/31.
I skipped National Novel Writing Month last year and didn’t regret the decision. My circumstances are different this year, and I’ve been mulling over whether to take part.
I’m still not sure, with mere hours before it officially begins.
What I do know is that if I do take part, it will be as a full-on pantser, perhaps even a full-on pants-on-head.
I have made a few decisions if I do participate:
I won’t continue a previous story
I won’t rework a previous story
In other words, this will be something 100% new
Probably something spooky or weird
But really, there’s a good chance I won’t actually do it. I like the idea of plunging in completely unprepared, though. It adds a certain zest.
Tomorrow I’ll update (for real) with either my announced project, an excuse for why it isn’t quite announced yet, or an admission that it ain’t gonna happen.
No, I don’t know why. But I can explain how I got here:
I decided I wanted to move away from Gmail for [reasons]
I began searching for other email services
I initially settled on Outlook.com because I already had a subscription to Office Microsoft 365, anyway
Outlook.com is mostly fine but doesn’t really do anything new with email, and the UI is bland and boring. I began looking again.
I settled on trying out HEY email. Yes, they like you to spell it all shouty like that. HEY got me a new email address and I like the way it looks. It does a few things differently and while I’m not yet convinced I’ll stay with it long term, it’s a fine second email service for me to play around with.
HEY offers something called HEY World, which lets you write an email that gets posted to your own custom mini-blog. Mine is here: https://world.hey.com/stan.james
Two friends humored me and subscribed, but the whole thing is pretty basic. But it gave me a taste of something different, and eventually I wanted more.
Today is also the day that Austin Kleon moved his weekly newsletter to Substack. I read several other Substack-hosted newsletters and began mulling moving my random thoughts from HEY World to Substack, where I can experiment and be weird on the internet.
Which brings me to my Substack newsletter, cleverly titled Stan’s Random Newsletter. You can see it here: https://stanjames.substack.com/ (I also have a handy link on the right sidebar of this blog.)
Can I just keep posting random nonsense here on my blog? Yes! Will I continue doing so? Yes! So why use Substack? Because there’s something about a newsletter that’s different, even if it’s simply the convenience of sending the random thoughts directly to someone via email. If they like the random thoughts, they can get more without doing anything. No websites to remember, no fuss, no muss (what is muss, anyway?)
I have no idea how long I’ll keep this up or what will come of it, but I’ll play around with it for a while and see where it goes. I’ll start by padding it out with some of my HEY World posts, because a smart author knows how to utilize existing resources. Or something.
Because someone has already written it, minus the plural. The only thing I missed was the local town corruption–but maybe I was too young and naive to imagine hearty mountain folk being bad.
Joanna Penn’s short book is exactly what it says–a look at how to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally to live the life of a writer, through new writer tribulations, on to actual publication and then dealing with what comes after (should you be so fortunate).
As such, there is little in here about how to write, but plenty of advice on how to deal with everything from self-doubt to overzealous fans, using a Problem/Antidote format. Penn’s style (seriously, a writer named Penn? The closest I get is someone calling me “pencil neck”) is open and friendly, and she provides excerpts from her private journal to illustrate points she is making, which is a nice way of building trust with the reader. The advice is practical and pretty common sense–you’re unlikely to slap your forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” but it’s still handy to have all of these ideas collected together and presented in a way that’s easy and entertaining to absorb.
It’s also just a nice change-up to read a book about writing that is not about, well, the actual writing part.
Recommended for new writers or those on the cusp of publishing.
