These aren’t polished essays or tidy aphorisms. They’re scraps I’ve carried around this month—half-heard thoughts, borrowed lines, sudden recognitions—that refused to be forgotten. Zuihitsu literally means “following the brush,” and while my version is shorter and scrappier than the classical form, the impulse feels the same: to catch what drifts across the mind before it … Continue reading Zuihitsu, 2025-12
Tag: writing
Carefulwords.com
[Carefulwords.com] is intended as word reference for inspiration. So far, I have added synonyms (perhaps too many) and historical quotations. I intend to curate these over time, when I have time. Reminded me about how important the reference tools you use can shape how you write and think. See Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) on … Continue reading Carefulwords.com
Boxing Time & Losing
Over the course of writing this blog, I've come to view writing as an important activity, like meditation. And like meditation, I find my motivation comes in fits and spurts. One thing I found helpful with this site is the "don't break the chain" method. Simply create the expectation and the space that you will … Continue reading Boxing Time & Losing
Some Reflections on Twitter & WordPress: 2022
You may have noticed that I have been posting to cafebedouin less lately. It is partially because I have been more involved in using Twitter. Why? One thing I like about Twitter is that it is a larger, socially constructed version of the kind of thoughts that we have moment to moment. Reading the timeline … Continue reading Some Reflections on Twitter & WordPress: 2022
Get Blogging!
"Your easy guide to starting a new blog. A blog is an easy way to get started writing on the web. Your voice is important: it deserves its own site. The more people add their unique perspectives to the web, the more valuable it becomes." -https://getblogging.org/ I've been blogging since January 2017. In those five … Continue reading Get Blogging!
reMarkable
"The only tablet that feels like paper Take handwritten notes, read, and review documents Take notes directly on PDFs Paper-like writing and reading All your notes, organized and accessible on all devices" https://remarkable.com/ I think this is interesting. I'm thinking that for most use cases, the move will be more to audio and video. But, … Continue reading reMarkable
Sudowrite: Writing with Artificial Intelligence
Robin Sloan described a process for "writing with the machine" back in 2016 that I tried in 2019. The interesting part of doing it yourself is that you could select the corpus that the A.I. was trained on and get writing in that style of subspecialty. But, it took a bit of work to set-up … Continue reading Sudowrite: Writing with Artificial Intelligence
Success: Deserve Has Nothing to Do With It
"It’s fashionable now to object on principle to the idea that writing is hard. Writing isn’t hard, this camp says; working in coal mines is hard. Having a baby is hard. But this is a category error. Writing isn’t hard the way physical labor, or recovery from surgery, is hard; it’s hard the way math … Continue reading Success: Deserve Has Nothing to Do With It
Black Hole as Metaphor for Climate Change
"Imagine a black hole. Humanity’s lined up before it. Everyone has to march through. Some are at the front of the line. They reach the other side first. Some are at the back of the line. They’re still laughing and joking and pretending, maybe. Nobody much hears from those who’ve gone through, because, well, it’s … Continue reading Black Hole as Metaphor for Climate Change
Online Techno-Polymath Guy
"I was discussing with Sam the “genre,” so to speak, of the Online Techno-Polymath Guy. You know this guy. He (and it’s usually a he) has his own website, probably hand-crafted in Kirby, Github, or WordPress, as well as a well-regarded, personable Twitter presence. He keeps track of everything he reads, writes pithy blog posts on esoteric subjects. … Continue reading Online Techno-Polymath Guy
Smol Pub
Smol Pub is tiny blogging service.- Web interface and CLI to manage your posts. - Accessible from Web, Gemini and Gopher.- Storage for your images.- Write custom CSS for web.- Attach your custom domain with SSL.- Export your posts.- No JavaScript, ads, or tracking technology. On the back of My Writing Advice post from yesterday, … Continue reading Smol Pub
PSA: Tics, lol
There has been plenty of discussion of verbal tics: such as standpoint modifiers, fillers, endpoint modifiers, softeners, up talk, fast talk and vocal fry. The funny thing about that kind of discussion is that it normally assumes the speaker is not aware of what they are doing and/or it reflects the speaker's internal emotional state. … Continue reading PSA: Tics, lol
Working Backwards
"The two-page (or one-page) mock press release format is also a writing genre common to Amazon, although it’s less often discussed than the six-page memo. What’s interesting to me about Limp’s invocation of the six-page memo in this Decoder interview is that 1) he describes how the two writing forms are, at least for his … Continue reading Working Backwards
Write: More Frequently, Less Long
"I don’t care what it is. Blog posts. Novels. Google docs. Articles. Wiki pages. Write more of them, but make them shorter."-Mike Crittenden, "Write 5x more but write 5x less." critter.blog. October 2, 2020. This is probably the best writing advice I've heard. Maybe you've noticed. I tend to write long. I'll try to make … Continue reading Write: More Frequently, Less Long
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