21–30 of 66 posts
good writing is mostly good editing Absolutely. What the internet needs is some collaborative site where people can trade editing for article submissions. That way everybody can get better at their editing skills, which is where the real impact can be made.
I moved from Wordpress to Medium after a day, as Medium took focus off of themes, widgets, and everything else besides the writing and allowed me to just write. It's pretty exciting seeing the read stats and realizing that something you're writing (as off the cuff as it may be) is being read by hundreds of other people. Thanks for writing this, and I hope to get as far as you do in improving my writing and making it a habit.
A couple of observations: You can only get better with experience. But remember that improving requires both practice and feedback. Practicing something that's developing the wrong habits will just reinforce those bad habits through neural pathway strengthening. This is a key principle in many skill activities (music, sports, gymnastics, strength training). It's one of the nuances to Gladwell's "10,000 hours" premise…
I mostly agree with you. The only point I'm hesitant about is the idea that feedback is absolutely necessary. I think feedback can be both good and bad; bad in the sense that things like originality, uniqueness, and novelty might be averaged out into blandness. I think I would say "reflection" instead of "feedback", which can encompass both internal and external reflection, without which no change (or improvement) ca…
1. Process over product
Totally agree. Being absolutely comfortable with the technical fundamentals is far easier if you're not concerned with the quality of your output on a day-to-day basis and—instead—concern yourself with the quality of your output over time. The quality of my output, in general, has increased over time as I've spent more time immersed in the craft.
2. Know why you're [shooting]
I'm shooting because I want to become a better photographer, get better at capturing my artistic vision, and, eventually, get published or shown.
3. Planning always helps
It sure does. There are days (or even weeks) where I realize that it's 11PM and I haven't shot anything for the day. Having a shot list to draw from, along with the occasional planned shoot, helps a lot.
4. There are no good first drafts
To produce my one published photo every day, I'll shoot somewhere between 2 and 800 photos, with the average being about 35. Yesterday, for instance, I had a photo shoot where I shot 813 photos. I'll probably winnow that down to about 30 'selects.'
6. Jerry Seinfeld is Smart
"objects in motion tend to stay in motion"
7. Mix up your [photography]
Yesterday was a self-portrait triptych. The day before that was a dog on a table (always bring your camera!). Shooting different things helps me get better at different types of photography (studio, street, still life, macro, etc etc), but they'll inevitably inform each other in ways I couldn't even imagine until after.
8. Get it done early
Having my daily photo out of the way earlier in the day inevitably makes me feel lighter and more relaxed. It is a strain, even though it's just for fun.
9. The ultimate practice for…
I love shooting studio self portraits. They give me a chance to practice different lighting setups, and (in a lot of cases) fail miserably at it. But, by failing miserably on my own and alone, I have the chance to perfect or totally write off that setup before I try using it on a subject.
10. Prime Yourself
Flickr, 500px, even Instagram. Plus photo blogs, photo books, art galleries, and so on. I spend a significant amount of time looking at others' photography.
[1] In case you're curious: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronbrethorst/sets/72157632426...
[2] #5 is the only 'lesson' that doesn't hold for my project for obvious reasons.
A couple of observations: You can only get better with experience. But remember that improving requires both practice and feedback. Practicing something that's developing the wrong habits will just reinforce those bad habits through neural pathway strengthening. This is a key principle in many skill activities (music, sports, gymnastics, strength training). It's one of the nuances to Gladwell's "10,000 hours" premise…
I mostly agree with you. The only point I'm hesitant about is the idea that feedback is absolutely necessary. I think feedback can be both good and bad; bad in the sense that things like originality, uniqueness, and novelty might be averaged out into blandness. I think I would say "reflection" instead of "feedback", which can encompass both internal and external reflection, without which no change (or improvement) ca…
Improvement is a process of variation, selection, and inheritance. That's the fundamental process of natural selection, but it's applicable across a huge multitude of domains.
For process improvement, the "inheritence" would be your memory / neural pathway strengthening of the activity. A challenge with behavioral modifications are ways in which the feedback / reward mechanisms can be hacked to reinforce "bad" (or at least unwanted) behavior. I've commented some at G+ about what I call the dopamine meme -- effectively a large number of addictive behaviors which provide transient rewards but are ultimately long-term deleterious.
A concern with the "write something every day" model is people who write and publish absolutely all their crap. It leads to stuff such as blogspam -- I had a discussion not too long ago with an editor of an energy blog who quote their mission: "Our aim is to get people excited and discussing engineering topics." My response:
I'd prefer if you reconsidered your aim: to inform people of advances in engineering topics. Which means both an accurate portrayal of the state of the art and new developments, and a focus on relevant stories.
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/dbMEcysw...
Point being: if you get in the habit of writing crap, you'll get really good at writing crap. And there are numerous organizations which deliberately exploit this ("virality", "gamification" and the like -- I've seen it from the inside).
> It’s much easier to edit something to become great than to slowly write a perfect first draft, which I don’t think is even possible. It is even possible. Isn't slowly writing a first draft exactly what you are doing by revising?
For me, I believe it's not possible, because I can't sufficiently model a reader's reactions while writing. If I want something to be good, I have to let it sit and come back to it as a reader. Only then can I see the imperfections. Or rather, some of the imperfections. It takes me 3 or 4 passes before a piece really settles down, and showing it to others often yields new avenues for improvement.
> It’s much easier to edit something to become great than to slowly write a perfect first draft, which I don’t think is even possible. It is even possible. Isn't slowly writing a first draft exactly what you are doing by revising?
My biggest motivation, now nearing three years without missing a day writing usually 500 to 2,000 words daily, which applies to exercise and a million other habits you don't want to lose, is If you miss one day you can miss two, if you miss two it's all over. (which I wrote up here -- http://joshuaspodek.com/a-model-for-consistency ) Words to live by if you want consistency and discipline in your life. I'm also comin…
> It’s much easier to edit something to become great than to slowly write a perfect first draft, which I don’t think is even possible. It is even possible. Isn't slowly writing a first draft exactly what you are doing by revising?
Do you have examples of how it's possible? For me, I believe it's not possible, because I can't sufficiently model a reader's reactions while writing. If I want something to be good, I have to let it sit and come back to it as a reader . Only then can I see the imperfections. Or rather, some of the imperfections. It takes me 3 or 4 passes before a piece really settles down, and showing it to others often yields new a…
If I had a spare domain name and 5 mn I would create a randomly generated Title Cap string on this template at xthingsilearnedfromdoingyforzday.com and the page content would be
Nothing
in random size and random background and text color.