100th post!

Today was a successful day of writing. I wrote 3 pages (1200+ words) of a piece and didn't finish before I had to leave for the day. (Call for our show at church is in 75 minutes). In addition to some other business stuff I had to write for customers.

I realized while I was jotting my notes down to finish my post later that I haven't been working on one piece. I've been working on two. Good realization. Both articles will benefit from being separated, and yet they are both related. They will be great, and they will go up on Security Musings next week.

And here we have a fish

Today was the first day of the thirty day writing challenge where I utterly failed to get any writing done. Well, until now. You see, I'm starting this at 10pm. I have just finished with the dress rehearsal of a variety show I'm performing in at my church. (The shows are Friday May 20 and Saturday May 21, at 7:30pm in the recreation & outreach center [ROC] at Centreville UMC, if you're interested.) Today I failed to overcome the resistance to writing, but it nagged at me all day and all evening. My wife is downstairs in the sanctuary registering a piece for this Sunday and I snuck up to her computer to do a little writing about not writing. Clever, eh?

I have a myriad of excuses, but really the best excuse I have is that I spent much of this afternoon doing the research I need for my next piece. I will have to write it first thing in the morning, because it will be the first piece I choose for editing. I have a number of things I need to write about, but many aren't the things I want to write about. This, I think, is part of the resistance I feel.

I believe I am what is classically defined as a procrastinator. I work best under pressure, and work well by responding to interruptions. It is a terribly unproductive and horribly stressful way to live. And yet, it is what I continue to do, day in and day out. I have tried to overcome my procrastination by scheduling time in my calendar to accomplish specific tasks, and then to not do that. To follow the Getting Things Done method, only to fall out of the habit. (By the way, reaching Inbox Zero is a fantastic feeling. My plan for this week was to get there. I think instead my inbox doubled in size in the last week.) I have tried to use the Pomodoro Technique as a way to brute-force myself into accomplishing things, but too often I let something interrupt me.

I should change. I need to change. And yet, there is a part of me that just falls into the comfortable, the predictable. Excuses come easily. "I've got that show this weekend." "My kitchen is under construction and our house is a wreck." "I haven't been able to spend enough time with the kids." They're just excuses, though. The real reason is that change is hard. Change does not come easy. A friend of ours always likes to say "change is bad!" whenever faced with a difficult situation. I don't think change is bad, and yet I am very resistant to it.

There's that word again, resistance. Resistance is a powerful force. Resistance is why we have high-voltage transmission lines, to minimize the amount of electricity wasted before it even gets to our house and lets us waste it. Without resistance we couldn't walk along the ground. (We'd only moonwalk, which would be pretty cool I guess.) Resistance keeps stuff from moving around when you don't expect it to. Resistance creates bacteria that aren't susceptible to common antibiotics, causing life-threatening infections. Resistance is futile.

Oh, wait. Resistance isn't futile. Isn't that what Captain Picard and the rest of the Star Trek folks taught us? Resistance can be overcome. It may be difficult, it may be ugly, but overcoming it is necessary to get work done. (Even in physics! Work = force · displacement, and you can't move something without overcoming the resistance to do it.)

So here I am, four days into this challenge, and I have written four substantial things - the last two of which were personal and focused on my need to change... and I haven't even gotten to my diet and exercise post yet.

And yet, I keep writing. Writing has been very therapeutic for me, I am sure of that. It will soon be time to turn that energy around to helping others and not just focusing it all internally.

Now, since you're undoubtedly dying to know, some information about why I chose this title for this blog post. Michael sent me (and the others participating in this challenge) an article the other day about the importance of choosing a title for your blog headline. Well, the title I chose tonight breaks pretty much every rule in that article. It has nothing to do with anything. And that's why I chose it.

The title actually has a funny story behind it. My wife took a class one year in college that was so dreadfully boring, she sometimes fell asleep during it. (I have never been mistaken for a narcoleptic. She, on the other hand can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.) In order to force herself to stay awake, she would furiously take notes during the class about everything that was said, and when nothing was being said, she would take notes about whatever was on her mind. It helped her stay awake. Usually. Well, this one time she actually wrote down part of a dream she had during a moment of semi-consciousness right before she fell asleep. Upon awaking, she read the words "and here we have a fish" and had no idea where they had come from, although they were in her handwriting.

My life is filled with tons of these wonderfully silly non-sequiturs. They might make an amusing coffee table book. (Although perhaps not the most amusing one.) Until next time, I'll keep overcoming my resistance and getting some writing done...

Too personal

Today (Wednesday, May 18) I wrote a long piece in the form of a blog post about my family. I have decided it is too personal to publish broadly. If you are a friend and you are interested in reading it and learning a little about my past and present family dynamic, please contact me. It was helpful to me to write it, and I don't mind sharing it. I just don't feel like posting it to SkyNet will do anyone any good.

Things I've learned

1) It's not true that nobody reads this blog. Especially when @catalyst directs people here. I also found out that two of my articles, one on fixing Vista's driver cache, and another on a Pandora bookmarklet, have quite a bit of views, both completely organically developed. The web is cool.

2) Writing emails is not what I was considering part of the thirty day writing challenge. Yet, a few circumstances over the last couple of days have required me to write some pretty good emails. I took the opportunity to not curse the emails and the fact they required responses, but use them as writing exercises. I was pleased with the results.

3) Contacting my lawyer is an expensive proposition, but it's usually the right idea.

4) Procrastinating certain work items (which shall remain unnamed lest I give away my secrets) is a bad idea.

5) Something very fishy happened with the calculation of scores at the charity golf tournament I was in yesterday. I would like to learn how handicapping team scores in a tournament is really done.

Today's writing challenge items consisted of a report which I cannot share, and some emails mentioned previously - also confidential. More public things will come this week, I still need a good candidate for others to edit.

Hello, World

According to Blogger, I haven’t written a post to this blog in 886 days. Well, that’s all about to change. I have undertaken a 30-day writing challenge at the prompting of Michael Santarcangelo (@catalyst). I have committed to spending 2 hours (more or less) writing for the next 30 business days. We have a team of four people participating in this challenge, two of which I haven’t met yet. I look forward to getting to know them through their writing over the next 6 weeks. This challenge is meant to provide value by encouraging quantity over quality; the theory is that an increased quantity will also result in increased quality. Since my typical quantity is measured best in 140 character increments, this is likely to help.

It will be difficult transitioning into longer form writing. It is relatively easy for me to quickly write an email message or blog post. Those tend to run in the 250-500 word area for me. Michael’s hope for us is about ten times greater. I expect that my writing style will prevent me from reaching those lofty word counts on any individual item, but I look forward to being surprised. If I am getting between 600-1200 words per day, I think I will feel like I’ve been successful. After all, I do not (yet) consider myself an author. I’m just a computer nerd that can string a few words together when required.

Frequently asked questions:

Why would someone who is having so much difficulty with time management commit to spending two hours a day doing something he doesn’t normally do? Well, that’s an excellent question. I do spend a fair amount of my time each day writing, but much of it is in the form of email messages or social network comments. Part of this commitment is to help me focus my writing energies toward things that will provide a lasting benefit and impact. I’m looking forward to writing some insightful blog posts (not necessarily to this blog) and strategy documents that will help me navigate the future. Also on the list are some biographical items – a speaker bio for me, a biography for Gemini (can you have a biography of a non-living thing?), and perhaps even some personal memories of my mother (before it becomes too hard to remember anything about her). There will be some calls for speakers, papers, and presenters along the way which I plan to knock out, and some internal documents that just need to be written and have suffered from a lack of available time.

How long did it take you to write this post? Well, I am editing and adding links on the fly, and limited myself to completing this post within 25 minutes (a single pomodoro).

Why are you submitting this post the day before the challenge actually begins? Two reasons. First is that I’ll be playing golf (weather permitting) in the Kids R First charity tournament tomorrow, and so my work day will already be shortened. The second is that I am spending some time at the office tonight because I had a major blow-up with my 5-year-old son, Brian, and I needed some time away. It seemed like this was a good thing to accomplish in addition to cleaning off my desk. Tomorrow I’ll be finishing a report that should have been completed a month ago, and that will pretty much wrap up my workday.

Why are you posting this here? Nobody reads this blog. Seriously, nobody. I didn’t even remember the address.

Anything else I should know about the challenge? I’m hoping I make it through and don’t disappoint the other participants. I am definitely going to be taxing myself to make it happen, and it is possible I won’t make it through. I’ll do my best.

The timer is wrapping up, so I will close with a message of thanks to Michael for encouraging me to take this journey. I’ll make sure I report back at the end of this challenge in case anyone does actually read this blog.

Total word count: 684 words. Not bad.