There is a lot of hype about the iPad. I am skeptical for many reasons, but all of my fancy arguments were just trumped by an email Apple just sent me. At the very top was this:

After reading this sentence I have become afraid for Apple. It smacks of sales-ly desperation. Because if that’s the best thing that Apple can say about what’s supposed to be a game-changing product, then they are in trouble. Let’s examine why.

Carl Sandburg wrote, “The I older I get the more suspicious of adjectives I become.” This bit of marketing is a wonderful example of why you shouldn’t trust them either. In this sentence, it’s not clear that the adjectives mean anything. Let’s break it down.

One of the best ways to see if a sentence has any sense to it is to cross out all of the adjectives and adverbs and see what you are left with. If we do that with this gem we have: “Our technology in a device at a price.” Totally underwhelming. Compare this to the words Jobs used to introduce the iPhone, “a new iPod, a new phone and an Internet communicator” — all in one.

If we use this logical structure to describe the iPad it becomes, “a new iPod and an internet communicator.” But that sounds underwhelming, so somebody tried to cover it up with deceptive adjectives. If you want to argue that this is a new category of device that changes everything, I will disagree with you. But that’s not why I’m scared. I’m scared because Apple is scared. And the fear is manifest in those bullshit adjectives. If that’s the best they can do to explain why the iPad is a game changer I’m not buying it.

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

Here’s what the creator of the Pomodoro Technique, Francisco Cirillo has to say on the subject:

For many people, time is an enemy. The anxiety triggered by “the ticking clock”, in particular  when a deadline is involved, leads to ineffective work and study behaviour which in turn elicits the tendency to procrastinate. The Pomodoro Technique was created with the aim of using time as a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do the way we want to do it, and to empower us to continually improve our work or study processes.

That feeling of the ticking clock is the feeling that we should be further along in our writing. This anxiety has been very useful to me in my professional life. Writing ads or even brochures is like sprinting. Faster! Faster! Faster!

But a book is a marathon. Aserious article has to be a 5k. And for both, there is certainly something to be said for pacing. And limiting anxiety. For me, the anxiety gets in the way. All those thoughts of, I should be faster, I’ve got to hit this word goal,  I’ve got to make sure that these words are good enough to keep or I will fall behind and I really really suck at this are counter-productive.

As writers, I’m not sure any of those worries are within our control. Or any of a thousand other worries that beset us as we are trying to go about the business of getting words on a page. All we can really do is control our focus. And the Pomodoro technique helps me get better at that.

The Real Distractions

Sure, distraction is the enemy. Everybody knows that. Facebook, Twitter, googling random things — the productivity that a computer can grant us is easily counterbalanced by the interrupts that it offers. But the real interrupts aren’t digital. They are psychological. The thoughts that you have while trying to write that have nothing to do with writing. Here’s how the Pomodoro helped me with distraction:

Every time you have a thought about or desire to do something else, yI write it down and continue with my work.  At the end of the Pomodoro (25 minute interval) I would review the things that had attempted to derail me and see if any of them needed doing, or had merit.

For example, “take the dog for a walk” has merit. I should take both the dog (and my fat ass)  for a walk at some point during the day. But “need to look up commas because you are using them wrong” has no merit. Maybe, I, am, using, commas, wrong. Who cares. Fix it in the rewrite. No reason to let one misplaced comma get in the way of 500 good words.

There are a billion worries and criticisms that can get in the way of getting the first draft down on paper. If we are unaware of them, then were are powerless over them.

Quality versus Quantity versus Progress

There’s probably not much we can do about the quality of our writing in the first draft. It is what it is. If we write enough first drafts and then rewrite them, we will become better writers. The more you work at something, the better you get. But what the Pomodoro Technique has done for me is give me an atomic unit of effort. A first draft is a rough number of words. But to get there I will have to spend X amount of quality, focused time. Not X amount of anxiety. Not X amount of times putting it off. Nope, X amount of time actually at the keyboard (or pad, completely focused on what I’m trying to write)

So the measure of a draft becomes X Pomodoros. Not words. Not quality. The psychological relief of this is immense. It gives me a way to just show up and do my part of the job. I put in the hours, I get the result. But if I worry about the result while I’m trying to put in the hours the process becomes much, much harder.

Here’s an example. I now have a progress bar for a 50k(ish) word story that I’m working on called “Unkillable.” Each box is a pomodoro’s worth of effort.

The Illusions of Quality

I’m not sure anybody can judge what they are making while they are making it. At least, not in the first draft. If you’ve been at this game for a while you’ve been over the moon excited about something you’ve written, only to go back and discover that it’s not that good. Likewise, you’ve cranked on something you thought was total shit and when you’ve gone back to re-read it, you realize that it’s not that bad. While you are giving birth is not the time to critically evaluate your children.

Estimation

So give yourself over to your writing for 25 minutes. And then another 25 minutes. Do this for N trials. Say N > 30. And you’ve got a statistically valid sample of how fast you write. How fast YOU write. Not how fast you should. Not how fast someone else writes. But you. Average those suckers together. In the next 25 minutes you might write more or less. But now you are able to estimate your progress. Now you have a production process. The more I turn the lever, the more words come out. I have a measure of control over the creative act that I did not have before.

Sure, sure. Sometimes you get lost. Sometimes you get nowhere. But over time, that’s not the case. Otherwise writers would never finish anything.

Treating Yourself Like a Dog

Another interesting facet of the technique is the sound of a kitchen timer in the background. After a little while, it become a powerful reinforcing device. Just like Pavlov could ring a bell and get his dogs to drool, the sound of the kitchen timer now causes me to focus. It also reassures me that all is well. It’s an audible signal that I’m working and things are as they should be. This is not a feeling that many people encounter naturally while writing. Especially not while writing fiction at the limits of your ability.

And let me tell you, I’m not above treating myself like a dog (or marmot, or ibex or prairie dog) to get good work done. Really, whatever takes. And anything that can make the passage of time reassuring — sign me up.

Check It Out for Yourself

You can download Francisco’s excellent book and find out everything you want to know about the Pomodoro Technique (including why it’s called Pomodoro) here http://www.pomodorotechnique.com If you put the technique to use. Leave a comment to let me know about your results.

So this little guy is the original weeble-wobble. His name is Daruma and this is his home on my desk. There is a weight in his paper-mache base, so if you knock him over he stands back up again. He is modeled after a legendary monk named Bodhidarma. Like all legendary characters, there are a number of tall tales about him. (They’re has to be, right? He’s got his own action figure.) What is most consistent in the tales is that Bodhidarma was the man who brought the practice of Zen Buddhism to China from India.

It is said that because his students lacked the strength to withstand long hours of focused meditation, that he taught them martial arts. The story goes that he sat in meditation so long, his arms and legs fell off. But whattya gonna do? Lots of things are said. Few things are done.

So why is he winking?

The wink is about doing things rather than saying things. In Japan it is tradition to buy one of these doll at the start of any large endeavor. Like opening a business. When you get it, both the eyes are blank. So you take a pen and ‘open’ one of his eyes. When you reach your goal you open the other eye  and then burn him.

So, when I started working on How to Succeed in Evil, I got this intense-looking Japanese doll. And for nearly five years now this little red-robed bastard has been winking at me. Many times, he’s been unbearably cocky — seemingly secure in the knowledge that I had started a project that I would never finish.  But if you look very closely, you can see that he’s scared. That’s why he’s trying to look so tough with those angry eyebrows.

Daruma is scared, because I now have an agent for How to Succeed in Evil. Which means the book is going to publishers in a highly purchasable fashion. Which means, he’s that much closer to seeing the world in stereo. And, shortly after that, in sterno.

What you really need to write a book.

I believe that the Daruma doll is also  related to a Japanese proverb: “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” For me, that captures  what you need most when creating something of scale, like a novel. There’s not a precise word for it in English, so I’ll call it a mix of endurance, perseverance, persistence and blind, mule-headed, stubbornliosity.

Daruma is a constant reminder of this. Any time I get frustrated, I can knock him over. And then watch as he rights himself. Might sound silly, but I assure you, anything that gets you through the day and keeps you on the path is nothing to scoff at.

So when I get a book deal, this little doll goes up in flames. And if I ever get a movie deal, what the hell, I’ll burn the Jade plant too.

]]> http://www.patrickemclean.com/2009/11/why-is-this-doll-winking-at-me/feed/ 3 http://www.patrickemclean.com/2009/02/what-januarys-writing-looks-like/ http://www.patrickemclean.com/2009/02/what-januarys-writing-looks-like/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:11:47 +0000 Patrick http://patrickemclean.com/?p=114 I put my writing log into a sparkline using Ubiquity and this is what I got. The highest peaks are two 3,000 word days, the average peak is 1000 words and the flat spots are, well, zero. (I was skiing those days

January 09:

Is technology really my friend?
Or is it just pretending
to be my friend so it can date my sister?

I like technology. A lot. But I’m not too sure how technology feels about me. It may be my faithful friend and boon companion — then again, it may just be pretending to be my friend so it can date my sister. Especially when it comes to writing.

I’m writing a book. And for all the romance and immensity that phrase can contain, writing a book is also, simply a production process. I am in the process of assembling 75,000 to 100,000 words. And, after writing 50,000 of them, I’ve become convinced that the first draft is the hardest part. Hemingway famously said that the first draft of everything is shit. For what it’s worth, I agree. So, my question, becomes, what’s the easiest way to get through the hardest part.

And to my surprise, the easiest way, turns out to be writing longhand. Not printing mind you, but composing with a long, flowing, and delightfully irregular script that fills the page like a river of words. I sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and a thousand words roll out in a flash. And not only does it often take less time than typing, I think I write better longhand.

Now realize, I am not a hunt and peck typist. I type very fast. And when I type on one of those thin little laptop keyboards that have about 3 millimeters of travel, my typing speed approaches the absurd. Like Glenn Gould, the wonderfully talented and eccentric pianist, who remanufactured his piano, shortening the action on his keys  so that he could play Bach faster. Beautiful, yet a little insane.

There is obviously more to writing than typing.

What I’m really doing is composing.  Composition requires focus. It is, like most acts of creation monotasking. And as much as I love technology, it drives us to distraction.

A pen and paper has but one functionality. It captures the marks I make so that they can be referred to at a later time. It doesn’t ring, it doesn’t bother me with an incoming chat or IM. It never asks me to plug it in so it can get more power. It doesn’t crash, it never needs an upgrade and it is unlikely that someone will snatch my pad and bolt from a coffee shop with it when I turn my back.

Sure, paper is perishable.

But it is predictably perishable. Data turns to noise in all kinds of unpredictable ways. Like hard drive crashes. And if an IT person tells you that there is a way to archive a file, not touch it for 500 years, and guarantee that it will be useable – they are lying to you. If you think I’m wrong, I’ll email you some WordStar and AppleWorks documents just as soon as I can figure out how to get them off my five and a quarter inch floppies.

But I can go the national archives right now and read a copy of the Magna Carta that was handwritten 793 years ago. No format or version issues here. It is fitting for this essay that, Magna Carta literally means “Great Paper”

But, to paraphrase Emerson, all of this is small account compared to what lies within us. And that is the struggle to organize and communicate our thoughts clearly with the beautiful, yet horribly imprecise instrument of language. And it is in this struggle, I believe that the beauty and power of writing longhand is discovered.

In a way, the problem with writing is, the same problem of hitting a golf ball. Both the page and the ball just sit there. And when you write you have (theoretically) a lifetime to rewrite it until you get it right.

But all that time is simply a field day for the critical part of your brain. Just the time it needs to jump in and muck everything up. This part of the brain needs something to critize. After all, that’s it’s job. But the critical function is not creative. You be critical about anything. And no matter how absurd you are being, you will find ammo to support you. Try running Hamlet through a Microsoft Grammar check.Try running Hamlet and leaving all the scenes in.

But the point is, there’s no possible way to get it right, if you don’t first get it down. And as much as I know this — I mean know it in my bones, as carpenter knows his measuring tape — it still doesn’t help.

The critical part of my brain is telling me, right now, that this sentence is horrible.

That the entire device of anthropormophizing the critcal side of my nature in this essay is a bad idea. And that I just mispelled critical. And I shouldn’t have started two sentences in a row with “and”.

But when I write longhand, the experience is different. I think it is because that critical part of my brain is busy picking apart my handwriting (which truly is horrible) instead of my prose. It tells me that my handwriting is atrocious. And it gets the satisfaction of being right. But who cares? While it’s busy the words are just rushing out. And they’re not henpecked or second-guessed before they’ve had time to cool. They exist in a flawed, but pure state. This kind of prose has a feral power that seems to be lacking from the things I type. Maybe that’s not it, maybe it’s just harder to get my head in that effortless writing space when I use a keyboard. But whatever the case is, writing longhand makes it easier for me to reach a writer’s high.

And if you’re still not sold on the idea that writing longhand might help you write better, consider this. Until the 20th century, books were written by hand. I would argue that the best writing in history was composed by hand. The entire process is much easier now. But, would you like to argue that the increase in the power of our technology has led to a corresponding increase in the quality of our writing?

Not me. I’m too busy scribing away.