Merry Christmas to All…
… and to all a safe and blessed day.
Creator’s Block
I’ve had a wicked case of creator’s block for the last week or so. It’s not the same as writer’s block; I know what I want to write, and it affects me writing code as well as prose. I just can’t get it out of my head and onto paper (or into type). I’ve had a half dozen blog entries rattling around in my head for the past week, I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out a solution to a coding issue I’ve been banging my head against for a week, and I’ve got aanother project I haven’t touched in a week. I just can’t get any of it out of my head and into the computer.
It’s a bit like procratination, as I just can’t seem to get started; but it not the same- I want to get started. If I do get started, I just can’t concentrate. As soon as I do, I suddenly get sidetracked by questions, ideas, or problems I hadn’t considered before. They often aren’t even important, but I’ll end up funnelling all my time and focus into them.
I think it has something to do with how much time an idea or problem spends in my head. I’m normally a great subliminal thinker… if I can’t figure out something (like a coding problem) in a short period of time, my best bet is to ignore it. My subconcious mind will work it out, and the answer will occur to me. I then have no problem coding it. But if the process takes to long, the rules seem to change. The longer it takes to figure something out, the harder it seems to be to implement once I’ve worked it out. I just can’t focus.
It’s similar with writing prose. I usualy start with an outline which I’ve worked out in my head. As I write, I flesh out detail and evolve the idea into a completed thought. But if the outline sits too long before I try to write about it, I have trouble figuring out the detail, or I get sidetracked by the details themselves. This is especially true for blogging. If I have an idea for an entry, but I save it to blog later, it’s always harder to get started writing it “later”. That’s one reason I haven’t written anything all week… too many ideas I’ve held onto for too long, and I can’t get started.
That’s also why I’m posting this now. I was thinking about some topics I’d like to blog, and the fact that I haven’t posted much at all for a week. I came to the recognition of how I work (or don’t… the notion of creator’s block) and decided I’d better write it down before it sits too long. I just hope this will help me to get unstuck on some other things.
Better Late than Never
I’m probably the last one to the party on this one, but today I read Structured Procrastination by John Perry (via Aaron Swartz). Suddenly my entire life makes sense. This is powerful juju.
Off the Air
There seems to be a problem with my host’s email server. They are working on it, meanwhile I’ve gotten no mail in about 5 hours (and that’s just not right). This includes my mailing list subscriptions. Amazing how disconnected I feel right now, even though my connectivity is otherwise unaffected.
Recuperating
Well, I made it through my little surgery. Coming out from under general anesthesia is just a wierd as I remember (I had it several years ago when I had my wisdom teeth out). The surgery was an umbilical (on my stomach) hernia repair; it went a bit longer than expect as the damage was a bit more than expected. It hurt like the devil when I came to, and it took a couple of tries with the feel-good juice before something worked. However, it all went well. The nurses at the surgical center were very nice. I have alot of respect for everyone who chooses healthcare as a career.
I knew alot about what to expect from what others have told me about surgical experiences, such as being repeatedly quizzed by various staff as to what procedure I’d be having. I consider this a good thing, we’ve all heard the stories of people getting the wrong procedure. I also got a request I hadn’t expected, and a missed opportunity. When I was asked to disrobe and don the paper gown, I was given a skin marker, and asked to ‘circle or put an X on’ the area where I was having my surgery. It was only later, after I had finished marking and changing, that I realized I should have written a note to the surgeon next to my X. The message? “I’m Blogging This.”
Under the Knife
In about an hour and a half, I’ll be having surgery. It’s a minor, outpatient procedure, that involves putting me under general anesthesia. I’ll probably be too groggy to do much afterwards, but later in the week I’m planning to add a few things to the site while I’m convalescing.
For one thing, I’m working on pinging index sites like Weblogs.com, using Tatsuhiko Miyagawa’s ping_weblogs_com_rpc plugin. Unfortunately, my host doesn’t provide the required XMLRPC::Lite perl module. My next host will definately have shell access.
See you on the other side.
Spoiled by RSS
Today seems to be the day for realizing how spoiled I’ve become by RSS feeds. First, my friend Sean told me he’s finally got a feed for his site. It’s only 0.92 so far, and he’s working out the kinks, but at least now I’ll know when he has new content. Seems I’ve missed a number of posts over there. Oops.
Then I stumbled on to some content (via a blog in my aggregator, of course) over at the Web Standards Project, and realized that they have a feed now as well.
Now if some of the web comics I read would offer a feed, I’d be all set.
Catching Up
I’ve been trying to get caught up on my reading today, as I have been essentially bedridden due to a stomach bug. I have just managed to reduce my “unread headlines” count in NetNewsWire to 0. I think it was around 350 when I started.
I also did some re-organizing of feeds, and dropped a few which no longer update, or which I no longer have interest in. I’m down to (a surprisingly low) 40 feeds. Of course, this removes my primary reason for putting off implementing a blogroll on the site. Whoops.
Now, I only have to slog my way through 214 messages in the Blosxom mailing list, and I’ll be all caught up. Maybe later.
Under the (Miserable) Weather
The weather here on the east coast is pretty miserable today. Wet, grey, and nasty. How fitting that I’m under the weather today. Nasty stomach virus hit me last night during the Eagles-Jets game (thanks TiVo… I didn’t miss a minute!). I’m still convalescing.
Since I’ve had so little free time lately with my laptop (as evidenced by the dearth of postings here lately), I’m quite well behind on my blog and newsgroup reading. I’ll be trying to catch up today, and maybe post another entry or two.
Or maybe I’ll just take a nap.
More Miscellany
I’ve been so busy lately, both at work and at home, that I’ve had little time for this blog. I’m going to try to rectify that, but I’ve got a bit of a content problem.
I tend to blog mostly about programming and web development topics, things I’m learning/discovering. Between my decreased spare time, and my current focus on Word/VB development at work, I don’t have the time to do my usual reading on such topics.
To fill the gaps for a few days, I’ll probably be posting more odds and scraps to the Miscellany category. The longterm focus isn’t changing; it may just be out-of-focus for a bit.