It would seem I’ve regained the ability to write more frequently and regularly despite my health hassles
My Preference
Normally I write posts for this blog by hand using a pen, Tomoe River paper and a clipboard. Sadly, my health hassles make this approach to writing very difficult and I do not have the capacity to write using analog methods regularly or reliably. Over the last few years I’ve had to patiently wait for windows when my health hassles doesn’t interfere with my writing. With analog I have to slowly write blog posts over the course of weeks and sometimes months. It’s quite frustrating but I enjoy writing and refuse to give it up, even if frustrated by my health hassles.
I prefer writing my blog posts on paper as it forces me to slow down, be thoughtful and less verbose in my writing. Due to this, I feel the quality of my writing is higher when written by hand than when written using digital methods. I also prefer my “analog writing voice” over my “digital writing voice”.
The Final Straw
Recently my health hassles were diminished just enough to allow me to write on paper. However, it didn’t take long for the window of opportunity to close. As I was writing, my health hassles started to become problematic. I found myself fighting my arm tremor and pushing to continue writing. Sadly this just exacerbated my arm tremor and made the last of my written words nearly unreadable. I could read the text I had written, but only just.
It was at this point something in my mind snapped. I got grumpy and my brain wanted nothing more than to unload an absurd number of words onto the page. I needed to find a way to write despite my health hassles. My brain also made it clear I needed to figure this out sooner than later.
Accessible Writing
My health hassles have been A Problem for years now and I’ve put forth significant effort ensuring they interfere with my daily life as little as possible. Figuring out how to write in an accessible form is well within my areas of expertise, I just needed to figure out what approach would allow me to write when my health is too problematic to use analog methods.
When I overhauled my 2nd Brain setup, I created a set of “detail notes” for my bigger todo list items, including todos for blog post ideas. I’ve been using these detail notes to track ideas for my posts, shower thoughts related to a topic and similar.
For whatever reason, my brain nudged my body to open one of these notes and start composing a blog post using my computer. I quickly noticed that my typing speed allows me to write my thoughts in near real time. I paused to reflect and realized this simple fact is why I don’t feel the quality of my digital writing is as high as when I use analog methods.
Interestingly, once my conscious mind clued into this typing speed problem, I started going back to the top of paragraphs and sections for re-reading and tweaking as I wrote about a topic. This loop of going back to reread, tweak and tune my writing slows me down. Significantly. I didn’t consciously start doing this and I’m glad my subconscious nudged my brain and body in this direction.
This slowing down of my writing speed turned out to be the key to unlocking writing with digital methods. I was able to compose a 16,163 word blog post using this looping method. Tellingly, I felt the quality of the post was high enough to publish outright. The quality of my writing and my voice were consistent with my analog method’s output.
The Solution
The solution to writing with digital methods, for me, is simply “go back and reread things multiple times”. I also “sit” on my writing output overnight, rereading it a final time and then publishing.
By slowing down my writing as I put words forth, I see major improvements in quality. When I write on paper I move slowly and deliberately and iterate what I’m going to write in my mind before writing it out. With digital, looping “back to the top” and iterating my writing inline achieves a similar result to my slower writing pace on paper. It prevents my writing from becoming a jumbled mess (like my thoughts) and allows me to slowly but steadily produce words and verbiage that look like they started life on paper.
Letting my writing sit overnight also ensures my brain doesn’t auto-correct or auto-tweak my verbiage as I read. Brains are pretty good at telling you what should be written instead of what is actually written. This is a known “thing” with a lot of science behind it. By letting my writing sit overnight this auto-correct problem goes away and I’m able to further increase the quality of my writing.
The only problem with this approach is I must be judicious and not “cheat”. If I don’t reread as I write and if I don’t let my writing site overnight, the quality of my writing is lower than when using analog methods. A low enough quality that prevents me from publishing.
Thankfully I can, and will, be judicious when writing using digital methods to ensure the quality of my writing meets my personal requirements.
Now all I need to do is finish working through my writing backlog and continue forth as I have in the past, prior to my health hassles becoming problematic.