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Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

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Re: Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

#31

Post by devrundown »

Awesomedonut wrote: post #30

Creative writing! I mainly do scifi & fantasy (I love combining my technical background with artsy stuff). I'm currently working on a silkpunk (Ancient China setting + retro-futuristic technology based on Ancient Chinese science) science fantasy multimedia webnovel. I'm in the middle of inventing my fictional computing system (tentatively named rune engines) that ties into the magic system. I think, for a lot of scie…

I've been thinking about getting into writing and I'm really not sure where to even start. Did you just dive in? Or did you take any courses, consume resources etc... to learn?

Re: Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

#32

Post by Awesomedonut »

devrundown wrote: post #31
Awesomedonut wrote: post #30

Creative writing! I mainly do scifi & fantasy (I love combining my technical background with artsy stuff). I'm currently working on a silkpunk (Ancient China setting + retro-futuristic technology based on Ancient Chinese science) science fantasy multimedia webnovel. I'm in the middle of inventing my fictional computing system (tentatively named rune engines) that ties into the magic system. I think, for a lot of scie…

I've been thinking about getting into writing and I'm really not sure where to even start. Did you just dive in? Or did you take any courses, consume resources etc... to learn?

This is gonna sound super pretentious, but I genuinely don't remember a time in which I wasn't into creative writing, haha! I still have little scribbled pages from toddler-me's stories. Writing is just something I can't stop doing, and my brain will leak out of my ears if I don't get the ideas out of my head and onto (metaphorical) paper somehow

I have no formal training, but I've watched a lot of writing-related YouTube videos and read books on writing. For you, I recommend just opening a blank doc (digital or just normal paper) without thinking about all that. I think consuming a lot of writing instructional resources up front is pretty paralyzing and demotivating, because it's easy to overthink. A trap a lot of writers (including me! Been there, done that) fall into is thinking about writing instead of actually writing.

If you have any ideas at all you wanna explore, just don't overthink it and get some words out (without worrying about stuff like prose or characterization or anything else). When I was younger, I'd browse https://www.tumblr.com/writing-prompt-s a lot as they have really interesting ideas.

Hope this is helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions; I could write about writing all day.

Re: Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

#33

Post by devrundown »

Awesomedonut wrote: post #32
devrundown wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about getting into writing and I'm really not sure where to even start. Did you just dive in? Or did you take any courses, consume resources etc... to learn?

This is gonna sound super pretentious, but I genuinely don't remember a time in which I wasn't into creative writing, haha! I still have little scribbled pages from toddler-me's stories. Writing is just something I can't stop doing, and my brain will leak out of my ears if I don't get the ideas out of my head and onto (metaphorical) paper somehow I have no formal training, but I've watched a lot of writing-related Yo…

This is great thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

#34

Post by mikewarot »

Repairing old electronics and test equipment down to the component level with a friend of mine who's been doing it since the 1950s.

You'd be surprised how many times it turns out to be connections that look ok, actually aren't. I've seen bolted ground lugs that were open circuits. I've learned to despise silver mica capacitors.

Oh, and with vacuum tube based gear, letting some smoke out doesn't necessarily kill things dead. The smoke does help localize the problem though.

Re: Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

#37

Post by fuzzfactor »

mikewarot wrote: post #34

Repairing old electronics and test equipment down to the component level with a friend of mine who's been doing it since the 1950s. You'd be surprised how many times it turns out to be connections that look ok, actually aren't. I've seen bolted ground lugs that were open circuits. I've learned to despise silver mica capacitors. Oh, and with vacuum tube based gear, letting some smoke out doesn't necessarily kill thing…

I like that also. The smell of some of the old gear is unmistakable a lot of the time too.

Re: Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

#40

Post by OccamsMirror »

aynyc wrote: post #12

Unless you count netflix or social media doom scrolling as a hobby, our old idea of hobbies are in decline because people are busy making a living. Cooking is sort of my everyday hobby, climbing & skiing are my weekend/seasonal hobbies.

Once we have kids we are now more involved with our kids. For better or for worse. We sacrifice time so our kids can have hobbies and extra curriculars. We work hard so we can afford it all. Violins aren't cheap.
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