The secrets of writing 102

Scott Westerfeld (who wrote the wonderful pulp singularity novel The Risen Empire) quotes Raymond Chandler:

The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn't do anything else but write. He doesn't have to write, and if he doesn't feel like it, he shouldn't try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Write or nothing. It's the same principle as keeping order in a school. If you make the pupils behave, they will learn something just to keep from being bored. I find it works. Two very simple rules, (A) you don't have to write. (B) you can't do anything else. The rest comes of itself.

I try to adhere to this rule by taking my laptop to places where the Internet is not: unwireless cafes sometimes, but most often the Metro Bus system. That works for me: it's an uninterrupted (usually) block of time (about 30 minutes, sometimes longer, rarely much longer) where I can't do anything but write.

Naturally, the universe can't leave well enough alone. Friday morning I saw a note: This bus has free wireless. Great. The best way to avoid succumbing to temptation is to put it far, far away. Metro has brought it closer. Lovely.

Half-Life, old Thinkpads, and Linux!

This morning, after a little bit of hacking, I got Half Life running... on my laptop. Under Linux. With the messed up Savage drivers, openGL, and barely enough video RAM. This isn't supposed to be possible, but it works great. Barney and I are right now dealing with the chapter "Office Complex."

I'm having far too much fun.

Control vs. Competency

Don Norman wrote Emotional Design and The Design of Everyday Thing, and is famous in the design community for his thoughtful approach to physical design. But I have to take a counterpoint to his recent essay, "Simplicity is Highly Overrated". Don has a point about a new washing machine from Siemens that was even more automated, less likely to damage your clothing, than a previous model, and yet despite this incredible automation it had even more controls than the previous model. He called the UI designer at Siemens and asked him about it. "Are you one of those people who wants to give up control, who thinks less is better? Don't you want to be in control?"

And I had to answer, as Don did, "Yes, I think less is better."

I think the second question is fascinating, because I think it contains a hidden bit of misdirection: "Don't you want to be in control?" hides the question, "Control of what?"

Omaha tells me that I'm incompetent when it comes to washing clothes. There's a cheat-sheet of settings next to the washing machine that lets me know what settings are to be set for what sets^* of clothes. Programming the washing machine is a competency: I don't want to have to remember all those little details so I have transferred that competency to a small sheet of paper and put it in proximity to the device it controls. The only assurance I need is to know that the paper itself is competent.

Thus the purchasing decision. "Do you want to pay more money for less control?" The assumption here is that I want to be in control of the washing machine, when what I really want is to be competent at washing my clothes. I am willing to pay more money to be more competent. If I transfer that competency to the machine itself, and have to only assess that competency once-- at purchasing time-- then I've freed up important mental resources to do something other than know about how to wash my clothes and I've reduced my own anxiety about getting it right every time I stuff clothes into the machine.

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^* This sentence reminds me that the word "set" has the most insanely long entry in the dictionary.

I laugh at your puny NaNoWriMo!

Look what I hit this morning on Sterlings:

27618	06119_AAA_Reservations_The_Free_Worlds.txt
6374	06119_AAA_Reservations_The_Free_Worlds_2.txt
4229	06119_AAC_Reservations_Polly.txt
519	06119_AAD1_Reservations_Expose1.txt
5443	06119_AAD_Reservations_Polly_And_Tau.txt
1628	06119_AAE1_Press_Release.txt
2621	06119_AAE_Reservations_Polly_and_Tau_Conscience.txt
2863	06119_AAF_Reservations_Polly_and_Tau_Height.txt
2451	06119_AAG_Reservations_Polly_and_Tau_Dove.txt
5289	06119_AAH_Reservations_Word_Gets_Out.txt
2781	06119_AAI_Reservations_Provocation.txt
6795	06119_AAJ_Seductrice.txt
4495	06119_AAK_Politics.txt
6795	06119_AAL_Midpoint.txt
6758	06119_AAM_Dove_And_The_Twins.txt
4349	06119_AAN_New_Worlds.txt
3676	06119_AAO_Senatorial_Decisions.txt
4793	06119_AAP_Risky_Invitations.txt
565	06119_DAA_Polestar_Exodus.txt
107	06119_XXX_Reservations_Seed.txt
100149	total

Whee! Oh, and I had a new story idea for Rhiane & Illonca and... Ng'Reff!