David A. Harding
Sunday, 16 Oct 2005
When I began redesigning my site last month, one of my goals was to write more, and by writing more I hope to write better. After two weeks of writting more, I've identified and fixed some the things that constrained my writing. One of the constraints turned out to be my favourite and most used program, my text editor: vi(1).
I've spent years mastering vi. I call myself a wizard. But I'm not a wise wizard: I use my editing powers when they aren't required—like when writing a first draft. A first draft requires momentum; not perfect grammer and tense. Everytime I would make a small edit, I would lose some momentum. Everytime I would change tense, I would come to a standstill. After building momentum 2 or 3 dozen times and losing it, I would give up.
Looking back, it's hard to believe I could write anything at all.
I resolved the problem with a simple solution: I purchased a $3 composition book for first drafts. Deleting a word or a sentence is as easy as in vi, but other changes are more difficult. The difficultly of changing text motovates me to move forward and not look back. I quickly take an idea from genisis to conclusion, and from that plan I write my article.
Maybe after getting used to working this way, I can return to writing first drafts in vi. Until then, my composition book will be my companion.