Finding out what you don’t like.
I registered this Medium account so I can have a place to dump random thoughts. I could have gone with any of the blogging services but Medium seems to be easy enough to get started. And it could just be that place my random thoughts could be useful to some others, just in case.
No actually. Why I really started this is to see if I like writing. To see if I like writing enough that I can elaborate my random thoughts I had during the metro ride from office to home after a long day. I want to see if I can make it far enough to commit a post a week.
I used to hate writing. Back in school days a three page essay to what most think as a piece of cake had me struggle for days until the very last night before it was due. Not that I didn’t know what to write about, it was I had too much to write about. I could have had three topics in my mind, four ways of talking about them, five stories that relates to the topics; all mixed up, in my mind at the same time.
Turned out I couldn’t concentrate on one and elaborate to a good enough depth for any score above a mere B-. So worse became worst I had bad scores and hated writing even more.
I think I would like writing if I can stay focused to elaborate ONE topic at a time.
Then I learned about process of elimination. (In fact I learned it many years ago. Someone had told me the longest answer is the right answer in a multiple choice question. I followed wholeheartedly.) Recently I started applying the technique to writing.
To eliminate all the thoughts that would side track my progress I started using Draftin, in fact any online writing tool would do a good job. I simply start a new write as soon as a new thought sparks in my mind, careless about elaborating the topic I would draft as long as my thought stays on the same topic, then stop whenever my brain drifts away. So after a while my Draftin account was full of drafts. Then on a quiet afternoon like right now as I write, I would pick a topic that interests me and write about it until…I encounter other thoughts. Then rinse and repeat.
Maybe I could never get my writing done so quickly as others who write regularly, one writing at a time. But it’s able to keep writing interesting that I’ve found myself wanting to write more often. IMHO, the method reliefs my deadline apprehension - the pressure associated with getting the writing done as if I have done something substantial. In a way it taught me to let go, to reactivate that piece of memory days later to catch up what I was thinking about. I also find it amusing to see how the future me would sometimes find the thoughts of the past me contain nothing more than stupidity.
That brings me back to the topic - finding what you don’t like. The whole point of doing all above is so that I can test out precisely what I don’t like. Through the process I found the ways that will probably let me like what I used to hate.
Often time people seem to quickly make a judgement call on what they don’t like, without further examining whether they don’t like the nature of the subject matter or just the way they perceived it to be done. Just let yourself go free, try everything, try different ways. Then soon after eliminating what you don’t like doing, left is what you like.
I still suck at writing and this is my way of improving it.
Drafts are waiting.
