31–40 of 46 posts
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Agreed. I've knocked out hundreds of thousands of words of novel on my netbook in vim. Having only low-end hardware actually helped me focus.
I'm actually in the market for a typewriter right now, for exactly that reason. I'm setting up a room in my new house with nothing but a desk for a typewriter, a chair, and a sound system.
I read Vonnegut's biography, And So It Goes. He'd been developing his novel about Dresden for nearly two decades before it became Slaughter House Five. He wrote most every day, just like any other job.
"For inspiration to strike, it has to find you working." -- Author?
Picaso: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/30296-inspiration-exists-but...
For instance, he's done a zillion self-portraits. He thinks his face is uninteresting, so he can explore pure technique. (Also, I guess he's always available as a model.)
Perhaps this is all part of making creativity a predictable thing - he doesn't get lost in infinite options.
Anyway, I'm a fan. It cured me of all inspiration-seeking behavior.
* http://www.amazon.com/The-Creative-Habit-Learn-Life/dp/07432...
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There were better artists, and better engineers, but he certainly had a fertile imagination, and who knows, maybe freedom of schedule was part of that.
who were better artists, engineers during his time?
If I learned anything from NaNoWriMo and from Stephen King's "On Writing", the labor counts much more than creativity. My 400,000 words of novel-writing (and counting) might only contain a few gems, but it contains far more than the empty page of someone still waiting for inspiration to strike. Sitting down and pounding out whatever you can for an hour or two a day will make you a successful writer faster than anythi…
Derek Sivers has another good article on this: http://sivers.org/qlq I think the general 10,000 hours theory suggests that for the first ~2,000 hours of a new skill, all practice is deep practice (exact # of hours depends on the skill, of course.) That means that for the first few years, quantity of practice is more important than anything else. You'll eventually hit a plateau and need to practice in a different way…
One might need those 8,000 additional hours to level-up into the next Tennessee Williams but - as emphasized in 4-Hour Chef and elsewhere - just 2,000 hours puts your far beyond 95% of the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I've knocked out hundreds of thousands of words of novel on my netbook in vim. Having only low-end hardware actually helped me focus.
I'm actually in the market for a typewriter right now, for exactly that reason. I'm setting up a room in my new house with nothing but a desk for a typewriter, a chair, and a sound system.
More importantly, Linux on an old laptop could still support Dropbox. I would have lost a lot of work to a dead hard drive just last week if not for that. It only takes one leak or one energetic puppy to destroy a paper manuscript.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm actually in the market for a typewriter right now, for exactly that reason. I'm setting up a room in my new house with nothing but a desk for a typewriter, a chair, and a sound system.
I could see that helping. It seems like transcription will prove a serious pain, though. More importantly, Linux on an old laptop could still support Dropbox. I would have lost a lot of work to a dead hard drive just last week if not for that. It only takes one leak or one energetic puppy to destroy a paper manuscript.
Leonardo da Vinci was a chronic procrastinator. Ironic?
He was notorious for not finishing projects, or finishing them late; but that's not the same as procrastinating by browsing reddit all day, he got a hell of a lot done.