§4. Read Write eXecute Archive

Read your notes, your field, your surrounding, into your heart. Write about, on, over, and through it because you like it. Execute what you avowed, noted, edited, written, and much everything else. Archive elsewhere, anyhow, anywhere that brings you closer to peace.

§14. 5x3 Essay on 3x5s

Take a plain index card. Turn it to make its vertical 5" long. Start to write:

Identify your topic on the title. Write three sentences. Space the paragraph, rewrite three sentences.

Reaching the bottom of the card, there should be five paragraphs. Five paragraphs, three sentences. Memorize: 5x3 on 3x5.

One side of an 5x3 index card should be enough for an essay. If not, take two index cards. If that's not enough, think again.

This post fits on one 3x5. Some space is left. This last sentence is intentionally added to follow my own rule.

§16. Concluding List

Open a document and type Conclusion. Under this title, deposit ideas. Let simmer.

Hopefully, an outline should appear. Reopen the document and read the list. Pick one idea from the outline and summarize it into an intelligible paragraph above the list.

Reiterate until a conclusion emerges. Its first part should be what has been done, the second part what's left for future work. Discard everything else.

§20. Write First

So you want to become a writer.  Why don't you start by writing, then?  If you love to write, write and find the joy in writing.  Never mind about what one must write.  Consider this as an abstract task: just start to write.  When the head empties itself, when preoccupations kick it, then get up and celebrate your freedom to rejoice over your life, by walking, singing, cooking, meditating.  Or just go read something.   And when on an idle, do the opposite: start by reading something.  Sit back and let yourself spectate the world of works.  You'll soon realize that when you start your day by reading, you're not really working.

§22. Working Titles

A title is a task.

A project is a list of tasks.

A task is a complex of actions. Actions describe a task in two minutes time frames.

A task is independent from another task.

What about an action without an explicit task?

A task does not depend on an infinite list of actions.

The list of actions is always limited if the task is well-defined.

A task is a problem that can be analyzed.

§24. The Happenstance of Writers

In **Ars Longa, Vita Brevis**, Lewis Laphalm declares:

Writers happen by accident, not by design.

Lewis omits the possibility of designing accidents.

Bukowski looks like a good instance of an accident by design.

See for instance So You Want to Be a Writer?

§27. Sections and Paragraphs

Reading Bencivenga's 1976 paper on free logic and set theory, I skipped all the formal sections and went to read what was announced in the introduction. When I did not understood the notation, I came back to where it was introduced. With more titles and subsections, I would have had to put more effort to read that paper.

Here were the sections:

- No title nor number for the introduction
- 1. The Language
- 2. The Formal System
- 3. Consistency
- 4. Comparison with Other Systems

For fifteen pages or so, that should be enough. If more sectioning is needed, paragraph titles would suffice. Sections and paragraphs are enough for most projects.

§29. How To Something

Imagine a complete blog with this kind of title:

- How to score
- How to write
- How to be happy
- How to realize satori

Powerful.  Always relevant.  Urges for more.

***

Here's how to succeed: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-succeed.html

A powerful recipe: 1. Keep trying; 2. If you succeed, say you've been lucky.

§34. Collidge on Method

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

[Calvin Coolidge]

§37. Write One Hour Every Day

Jeffrey J. McDonnell rediscovers the morning pages, but for academic life:

First thing in the morning is when I'm at my mental best, and when I'm still most in control of my time, so I now use the first hour of my day to write. For me, it's best done from home. I've developed something of a ritual: I wake up early, make an espresso, and write until I'm spent—or until distractions like email or the day's deadlines and meetings start to intrude. This is usually about an hour, some days a little less and some days more. I've found that, like hitting a ball in golf, regular writing is easier if I tee it up. I plan my early morning writing the night before. It is in my calendar and on my to-do list, with details about which paper and section I will be working on.

It still is a great trick. So many writers use a variation of it.

Source: doi.org/10.1126/science.353.6300.718

§40. A Good Mess

Here is how looks Bob Dylan's lyrics for “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.



A pencil and a sheet of unruled three-hole notebook paper can do wonder.

Source: Bobulate

§41. Future by Four

A man will have enough of running backwards in time to create posts for a pet project he might be the only one to read. He will decide to write in the future many posts at the same time. More or less the same time. He'll write them by four, so he'll only have to this twelve times per year to fulfill his personal obligations.

§43. William Zinsser on Method

How to solve most of your writing problems:

You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?

-- William Zinsser

§50. One, Two, Three

One sentence. Slogan. Ringtone. One-liner. Exclamation.

Two sentences. Question and answer. Propositum and dubitatum. Punch lines and slap sticks. Basic alternation. Chorus.

Three sentences. Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Major, minor, and conclusion. Minimal enumeration.

§53. An Active Textual Life

Text files are portable, small, and convertible into almost anything when used with a text markup like Markdown.

One can build a hierarchy of projects, with notes in all of them. This is good when project names are fixed.

One could build a single huge text file for all of the notes. This is good for mind dumps.

Whatever organization one chooses, once one gets at it, one will have an active textual life.

§55. Wishlist

A man deleted all the stuff from his wishlist. From then on, he started to add real wishes: what he wanted to do, what he wanted to be.

The man also found necessary to start a twin project. From then on, he kept track of everything he did not want to have, to do or to be anymore.

Learn to "Write"

Source: Dr. Boli

Benjamin Franklin on Method

> Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Written Medication

Since I started to write, my note taking problems dissapeared.

Textbook Example

Pure. Simple. Clear. Funny. Useless.