(this is just a rant, not insightful) Everybody knows how important it is to choose the right time to write something. The optimal time is when you’re really invested in the topic, learning rapidly but know enough to start the writing process. Then, ideally, during the writing process everything will crystalize. If you wait much longer than this the topic will no longer be exciting and you will not want to write about it.
Everybody gives this advice, both within and outside of academia. I’ve heard it from professors, LW-y blog posts (maybe even on LW?), and everywhere in between.
This isn’t a direct answer to your question, but what I’ve personally found is that if I want to get re-excited about a topic that has already passed that critical period, the best thing to do is find people either asking questions about it or Being Wrong On The Internet about it, so that then I want to explain or rant about it again. ;-)
This might be helpful advice. Some of the more required writing I’ve been putting off is probably too niche for the “Being Wrong On The Internet” aspect but I could probably more proactively find people willing to let me explain things to them. Come to think of it this has often been a good way to motivate me to learn / write things...
Yeah, it seems that the desire to write is tied is often tied to a desire to explain things, it’s just that our past self is usually the first person we want to explain things to. ;-) We could think of it as being like a pressure differential of knowledge, where you need a lower-pressure area for your knowledge to overflow into. Having a mental model of a person who needs to know, but doesn’t, then feels like an opportunity to relieve the sudden pressure differential. ;-)
In principle, I suppose imagining that person might also work if you can model such a person well enough in your mind.
This is an interesting way to think about it. For me, I’m not sure whether it’s as much of a pressure differential as much as it is a pressure threshold. The latter meaning, if I exceed a certain level of excitement about a topic, then I feel a compulsion to communicate (and it feels effortless). By contrast, if I have not hit that level, it becomes much harder to write or think about that topic. I wonder whether developing more motivation based on the “sink” would in turn make me a more effective communicator...
Uh oh...”everybody knows” was poor wording here then. I guess it would have been more precise to say “I’ve heard this from multiple different non-overlapping groups so it seems like widely applicable advice”.
Or maybe you write for a living because you are naturally good at selecting the right time to write / have a wider window for when you are capable of writing well?
My favourite version of this advice is Sarah Perry’s writing graph (from the Ribbonfarm longform course, I think) - maybe that’s one of the places you saw it?
(this is just a rant, not insightful) Everybody knows how important it is to choose the right time to write something. The optimal time is when you’re really invested in the topic, learning rapidly but know enough to start the writing process. Then, ideally, during the writing process everything will crystalize. If you wait much longer than this the topic will no longer be exciting and you will not want to write about it.
Everybody gives this advice, both within and outside of academia. I’ve heard it from professors, LW-y blog posts (maybe even on LW?), and everywhere in between.
SO WHY DO I CONSTANTLY IGNORE THIS ADVICE?? :(
This isn’t a direct answer to your question, but what I’ve personally found is that if I want to get re-excited about a topic that has already passed that critical period, the best thing to do is find people either asking questions about it or Being Wrong On The Internet about it, so that then I want to explain or rant about it again. ;-)
This might be helpful advice. Some of the more required writing I’ve been putting off is probably too niche for the “Being Wrong On The Internet” aspect but I could probably more proactively find people willing to let me explain things to them. Come to think of it this has often been a good way to motivate me to learn / write things...
Yeah, it seems that the desire to write is tied is often tied to a desire to explain things, it’s just that our past self is usually the first person we want to explain things to. ;-) We could think of it as being like a pressure differential of knowledge, where you need a lower-pressure area for your knowledge to overflow into. Having a mental model of a person who needs to know, but doesn’t, then feels like an opportunity to relieve the sudden pressure differential. ;-)
In principle, I suppose imagining that person might also work if you can model such a person well enough in your mind.
This is an interesting way to think about it. For me, I’m not sure whether it’s as much of a pressure differential as much as it is a pressure threshold. The latter meaning, if I exceed a certain level of excitement about a topic, then I feel a compulsion to communicate (and it feels effortless). By contrast, if I have not hit that level, it becomes much harder to write or think about that topic. I wonder whether developing more motivation based on the “sink” would in turn make me a more effective communicator...
Protagonist: “Everybody knows!”
Narrator: “Everybody didn’t know.”
(edit: I think this came out meaner than I meant it to, mostly I thought it was a fun injoke about the everybody knows post)
I have never heard this advice and I write for a living ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Uh oh...”everybody knows” was poor wording here then. I guess it would have been more precise to say “I’ve heard this from multiple different non-overlapping groups so it seems like widely applicable advice”.
Or maybe you write for a living because you are naturally good at selecting the right time to write / have a wider window for when you are capable of writing well?
My favourite version of this advice is Sarah Perry’s writing graph (from the Ribbonfarm longform course, I think) - maybe that’s one of the places you saw it?
I also ignore it a lot :(
Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking of!