David_Gerard comments on Procedural Knowledge Gaps - Less Wrong

126 Post author: Alicorn 08 February 2011 03:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (1477)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: David_Gerard 09 February 2011 03:55:31PM *  5 points [-]

Depends. If I could type as fast as I talk, I would write more and better.

(I write, speak and think pretty much identically. This is necessary to being a certain species of good writer.)

Typing "cat>>tmp.txt" gives me a terminal where I can only add lines, not remove them. This gets me writing a first draft brain-dump pretty efficiently - to the point where I plug in a larger keyboard, because this netbook keyboard is too slow. (Need a Model M.)

I've seen many authors say that writing in a medium where you can't go back and edit as you're writing gives better results, as you train your brain to get stuff right the first time. Also, typing a second draft completely afresh (rather than word-processing the first draft) gives good results. These are, of course, in the class of techniques for writers to try applying to see what works for them personally.

Back in the olden days, before this "web" rubbish, my friends and I would write multi-page first draft letters to each other, rambling on about whatever rubbish (generally indie music).