How I Spent My Winter Vacation: Not Coding

For two glorious weeks at the end of 2015 I had time off. Rather than bury myself in side coding projects I decided this year I’d go another direction: no coding. No programming of any kind. Instead, I spent time working on a writing project. A screenplay to be exact. Hey, I live five miles from Hollywood Blvd. so why not?

The writing was a lot of fun. The first draft is almost done. Almost one hundred pages.

But in the course of this exercise I noticed some changes in me. I haven’t parsed these into good and bad, just: different.

Normally when I’m in coding mode, my taste in TV and movies runs to action and science fiction, or detective shows on TV. After two weeks of just writing I find these videos don’t hold my interest. I’m watching more comedies. Especially older ones like “The Thin Man” series or “Harvey.” Snappier dialog, quicker moving plots, more twists and turns. The plodding or linear nature of the other shows now feels bland.

I also noticed that my memory has changed. If I’m programming all day I remember names of things precisely. Now I find I can’t remember the names of things — I can remember the first letter of names, or where I know them from. For instance, if it’s an actor or writer in a movie I know their initials and what they’ve done — but I can’t recall their names without effort. So it feels like the way I connect information has changed — it’s more symbolic and less discrete. Interesting.

Next, I’m sleeping better. It took a week, but now I’m sleeping through the night without waking up for no good reason. That may just be the effect of being able to relax without work intruding on my thoughts every day. But in general my mind feels calmer. If I’m coding, I find I need a nap in the middle of the day — either from poor sleep at night or just fatigue. When writing I feel fine all day long. No nap needed.

Finally, I find I’m more social and communicative. When I’m heads-down in the code I tend to have my mind focused elsewhere when I leave the house or office. I don’t pick up on people too well. I generally feel distracted because my mind is trying to hold so much information until I can get back to work. When I was just writing, I could stop at a convenient point then go off and do something with a clear head, and then when I felt like writing again just read through where I’d left off and pick it back up again.

While I still (even at this age) enjoy coding, I must admit I liked the Writers Life. From a health and happiness standpoint it agreed with me. If I could make the kind of money at it I do in software I’d probably jump ship in an instant.