I enjoyed reading this and skimming through your other shortforms. I’m intrigued by this idea of using the short form as something like a journal (albeit a somewhat public facing one).
Any tips, if I might want to start doing this?
How helpful have you found it?
Any failure modes?
copied from bottom of post: “My #1 tip is to start writing shortforms, whatever you can do, give it a go :) try different strategies, write about different types of things, be more personal or less personal, fail publicly, and so on so you can see what works well for you and grow in the ways you want to grow!”
Were there any parts you found particularly enjoyable, interesting, or even enlightening in some way?
I’ll share my experiences thus far writing these shortforms:
I definitely use these shortforms as a public journal or log, and I find that really helpful in several ways.
When I post something on the public internet (i.e. public http/https sites, not walled platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Discord, or otherwise) I find that it gives me more self-confidence, feels very “real” and tangible in a way that writing privately or posting on a private / walled platform does not (that realness and tangible “in the world” feel is good for me), and feels like a good avenue for “leveling up” in a variety of ways.
I value feedback, critique, suggestions, discussion, and so on from other people. I believe that a person becomes the best version of theirself, “levels up” more quickly and in a better way, and so on when practising their arts amongst a community of other practitioners, publicly. I don’t do very well when it’s just me by myself and while there are some forms of deliberate practice for some skills and arts that work okay-ish solo or require being solo occasionally, I’m at my very best when I’m learning and operating publicly in a community. So these shortforms help me learn and operate publicly in a community I care about and like being a part of, strengthen my efforts to learn and practise, and more.
These shortforms feel like a great way for me to practise writing publicly before doing the honestly scarier and more intimidating thing of writing a regular post here on LW that could go on main / the frontpage. Since I’m not that worried about hitting a certain quality bar level when writing shortforms (though the publicness of them helps ensure at least some good minimum quality, which I like and appreciate), I find it much easier to actually write and publish them whereas a main / frontpage post still feels like quite an endeavour to get correct and what not.
Sometimes I feel very guilty or go into a negative failure spiral if I say I’ll write or do something in a shortform and then don’t finish or follow through on doing that thing. However, because I treat this as a personal log / journal and think there’s a lower quality bar...PLUS try to be kind to myself, recognize when a strategy or approach isn’t working, etc. then it’s usually not too hard to break the guilt or failure spiral by simply talking about what happened in the next shortform and declaring what I’ll try next. I find that that capability to fail publicly and come back and try something different and keep failing and learning, growing, and doing better over time is a surprisingly empowering and good feeling / thing. The cost of failure here is low, so I can practise trying things out and failing publicly without really any sort of significant cost, which lets me learn and grow in important ways.
By far the biggest benefit I’ve enjoyed while writing these shortforms is that I have a public corpus of works I can look back on, reflect on, and grow from. It’s not a very big corpus of works, nor sophisticated, nor fancy / important, but it’s mine and it’s a start! I like being able to look back and see what I struggled with over time and what might have helped me get through something difficult / solve a problem.
It’s also neat to see slices of me carved out like tree rings and preserved in writing. I used to think that that was a scary terrible thing about writing publicly, but now I believe it to be a great feature and not a bug at all. The self is not some coherent consistent thing, but it can be pointed at, sort of. I like being able to point at myself at whatever time / slice is available via what I wrote and see what was there / what I was like / where I was.
My #1 tip is to start writing shortforms, whatever you can do, give it a go :) try different strategies, write about different types of things, be more personal or less personal, fail publicly, and so on so you can see what works well for you and grow in the ways you want to grow! (copying this to top of post because this is now a bit long)
Let me know what you decide to do, I’ll cheer you on :)
I enjoyed reading this and skimming through your other shortforms. I’m intrigued by this idea of using the short form as something like a journal (albeit a somewhat public facing one).
Any tips, if I might want to start doing this? How helpful have you found it? Any failure modes?
Cheers :)
copied from bottom of post: “My #1 tip is to start writing shortforms, whatever you can do, give it a go :) try different strategies, write about different types of things, be more personal or less personal, fail publicly, and so on so you can see what works well for you and grow in the ways you want to grow!”
Were there any parts you found particularly enjoyable, interesting, or even enlightening in some way?
I’ll share my experiences thus far writing these shortforms:
I definitely use these shortforms as a public journal or log, and I find that really helpful in several ways.
When I post something on the public internet (i.e. public http/https sites, not walled platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Discord, or otherwise) I find that it gives me more self-confidence, feels very “real” and tangible in a way that writing privately or posting on a private / walled platform does not (that realness and tangible “in the world” feel is good for me), and feels like a good avenue for “leveling up” in a variety of ways.
I value feedback, critique, suggestions, discussion, and so on from other people. I believe that a person becomes the best version of theirself, “levels up” more quickly and in a better way, and so on when practising their arts amongst a community of other practitioners, publicly. I don’t do very well when it’s just me by myself and while there are some forms of deliberate practice for some skills and arts that work okay-ish solo or require being solo occasionally, I’m at my very best when I’m learning and operating publicly in a community. So these shortforms help me learn and operate publicly in a community I care about and like being a part of, strengthen my efforts to learn and practise, and more.
These shortforms feel like a great way for me to practise writing publicly before doing the honestly scarier and more intimidating thing of writing a regular post here on LW that could go on main / the frontpage. Since I’m not that worried about hitting a certain quality bar level when writing shortforms (though the publicness of them helps ensure at least some good minimum quality, which I like and appreciate), I find it much easier to actually write and publish them whereas a main / frontpage post still feels like quite an endeavour to get correct and what not.
Sometimes I feel very guilty or go into a negative failure spiral if I say I’ll write or do something in a shortform and then don’t finish or follow through on doing that thing. However, because I treat this as a personal log / journal and think there’s a lower quality bar...PLUS try to be kind to myself, recognize when a strategy or approach isn’t working, etc. then it’s usually not too hard to break the guilt or failure spiral by simply talking about what happened in the next shortform and declaring what I’ll try next. I find that that capability to fail publicly and come back and try something different and keep failing and learning, growing, and doing better over time is a surprisingly empowering and good feeling / thing. The cost of failure here is low, so I can practise trying things out and failing publicly without really any sort of significant cost, which lets me learn and grow in important ways.
By far the biggest benefit I’ve enjoyed while writing these shortforms is that I have a public corpus of works I can look back on, reflect on, and grow from. It’s not a very big corpus of works, nor sophisticated, nor fancy / important, but it’s mine and it’s a start! I like being able to look back and see what I struggled with over time and what might have helped me get through something difficult / solve a problem.
It’s also neat to see slices of me carved out like tree rings and preserved in writing. I used to think that that was a scary terrible thing about writing publicly, but now I believe it to be a great feature and not a bug at all. The self is not some coherent consistent thing, but it can be pointed at, sort of. I like being able to point at myself at whatever time / slice is available via what I wrote and see what was there / what I was like / where I was.
My #1 tip is to start writing shortforms, whatever you can do, give it a go :) try different strategies, write about different types of things, be more personal or less personal, fail publicly, and so on so you can see what works well for you and grow in the ways you want to grow! (copying this to top of post because this is now a bit long)
Let me know what you decide to do, I’ll cheer you on :)