Jackson Radcliffe's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
How I write
Writing’s not easy. You have to sit in a chair all day and move your fingers around rather quickly while staring at the words that appear magically on a screen in front of you. It’s hard work and really quite exhausting.
So when I’m not sitting indoors at my computer I like to work outside in my garden. In English we call that gardening, but if I understand correctly, Americans call a garden a yard and gardening yardwork. This confuses me, because in Britain a yard is an unpleasant square of concrete surrounded by a high brick wall and yardwork is what men with balls and chains around their ankles were made to do in Victorian times as punishment.
Have you ever heard of the Yard of Eden? Me neither.
Anyway, I have veered off topic. What I want to talk about here is what I do while I am gardening / doing yardwork. What I do is write. Or, more precisely, I think. This is the closest I ever get to multi-tasking. I call it duo-tasking and it doubles my efficiency, which is awesome if you think about it, which I do.
Now, when I say that I think while gardening, that is not strictly true. What I actually do is talk to myself.
Talking to yourself is what mad, crazy nutters do. However, if you write it down afterwards, you can claim that you are a writer and most people are OK with that.
So that’s what I do. You could call it yardwork. You could call it crazy, random mutterings. You could call it writing. Whatever it is, someone’s got to do it.
So when I’m not sitting indoors at my computer I like to work outside in my garden. In English we call that gardening, but if I understand correctly, Americans call a garden a yard and gardening yardwork. This confuses me, because in Britain a yard is an unpleasant square of concrete surrounded by a high brick wall and yardwork is what men with balls and chains around their ankles were made to do in Victorian times as punishment.
Have you ever heard of the Yard of Eden? Me neither.
Anyway, I have veered off topic. What I want to talk about here is what I do while I am gardening / doing yardwork. What I do is write. Or, more precisely, I think. This is the closest I ever get to multi-tasking. I call it duo-tasking and it doubles my efficiency, which is awesome if you think about it, which I do.
Now, when I say that I think while gardening, that is not strictly true. What I actually do is talk to myself.
Talking to yourself is what mad, crazy nutters do. However, if you write it down afterwards, you can claim that you are a writer and most people are OK with that.
So that’s what I do. You could call it yardwork. You could call it crazy, random mutterings. You could call it writing. Whatever it is, someone’s got to do it.
You already said that!
One of the things I like about Twitter is that it tells you off if you try to tweet something you’ve tweeted before. So Twitter will allow you to say things that are unbelievably stupid, but only once. That seems like a good rule. Perhaps we should apply it to our politicians.
I often forget really important things, especially words and names, and even my opinions on topics. But that’s not due to old age or early onset dementia. I’ve always had a terrible memory. And that’s one of the reasons I started blogging.
My blog is an extension of my brain. It’s a place where I can record my thoughts as they happen and try to work out what I think about the world. And it’s a resource I can refer back to if I forget what I think about something. If you think that’s stupid, then you’ve obviously got a much better memory than me.
However good our powers of recall, we can all benefit from tools for thinking. The human brain is a powerful machine, but it’s not enough to get by in the modern world. That’s why we need computers, blogs and even Twitter. They’re all useful tools for thinking better.
Einstein once said that Einstein plus a pencil is cleverer than Einstein. In my case, however, a pencil is never going to be enough.
Originally posted at Blog Blogger Bloggest.
I often forget really important things, especially words and names, and even my opinions on topics. But that’s not due to old age or early onset dementia. I’ve always had a terrible memory. And that’s one of the reasons I started blogging.
My blog is an extension of my brain. It’s a place where I can record my thoughts as they happen and try to work out what I think about the world. And it’s a resource I can refer back to if I forget what I think about something. If you think that’s stupid, then you’ve obviously got a much better memory than me.
However good our powers of recall, we can all benefit from tools for thinking. The human brain is a powerful machine, but it’s not enough to get by in the modern world. That’s why we need computers, blogs and even Twitter. They’re all useful tools for thinking better.
Einstein once said that Einstein plus a pencil is cleverer than Einstein. In my case, however, a pencil is never going to be enough.
Originally posted at Blog Blogger Bloggest.
