├── README.md ├── book2 └── book.txt ├── book1 ├── typing3.txt ├── type.txt ├── typing4.txt ├── typing5.txt ├── ideas.txt ├── typing6.txt ├── typing2.txt ├── rules.txt ├── announce-2.txt ├── announce.txt ├── typing7.txt ├── thoughts.txt ├── book.txt ├── attic.txt ├── draft-1.txt ├── awesome-notes.txt └── messages.txt ├── book-topics.txt └── rules.txt /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # will-writes-books -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book2/book.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Final title: 2 | The Most Beautiful Program Ever Written 3 | 4 | Working title: 5 | The Most Ugly but Finished Book Ever Written on the Most Beautiful Program Ever Written 6 | 7 | by William E. Byrd 8 | 9 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/typing3.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hello, dear reader! 2 | 3 | I hope I am getting faster. 4 | 5 | This book is about my attempts to instill idiosyncratic and creative thinking in myself. I present techniques I have found useful personally, always presented in the context of one or more real-life stories. This book is meta-circular, in that I applied many of these techniques to the writing of the book. 6 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/type.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hello, dear reader! I hope you are well. 2 | 3 | I have a fancy new keyboard. The keyboard is a Kenesis Advantage360. The keys are recessed in a bucket shape. Sussosedly this makes typing more comfortable, althoughI probably need to type much more to get the benefits. 4 | 5 | I am still figuring out how to type using this thing. 6 | 7 | I am typing maybe 11 words per minute on a good stretch. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/typing4.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Silent writing session 2 | 3 | I wrote for 15 minutes earlier today, but had problems with the video. 4 | 5 | My goal right now is to spend one hour "in the chair" each day, regardless of writing speed or topic. Also, I want to touch type, regardless of speed or accuracy. 6 | 7 | I also want to use Emacs commands as I would normally. 8 | 9 | For now, fifteen minutes per session is probably enough. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/typing5.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Yes! I can touch type, just slowly. Oh, so very slowly... 2 | 3 | Maybe I should speed up this video 4x or whatever. 4 | 5 | Are we having fun yet? 6 | 7 | Mostly got the previous line the first attempt. 8 | 9 | It's a long way to the top, if you wanna rock 'n roll... 10 | 11 | My accuracy is improving dramatically while touch typing, even if my speed is still sad. If I can keep improving accuracy, I'm sure speed will follow. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book-topics.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | TOPICS and TITLES for books 2 | 3 | Book 1 (Feb 2024): Strategies for Idiosyncratic and Creative Thinking 4 | 5 | Book 2 (Mar 2024): The Most Beautiful Program Ever Written 6 | 7 | Book 3: ? 8 | 9 | Book 4: 10 | 11 | Book 5: 12 | 13 | Book 6: 14 | 15 | Book 7: 16 | 17 | Book 8: 18 | 19 | Book 9: 20 | 21 | Book 10: 22 | 23 | Book 11: 24 | 25 | indeterminate #: sci-fi novel, short story collection, or screenplay 26 | and wow will it be bad!!! 27 | possibly will be a collab 28 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/ideas.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | * include strategy of outlining to the paragraph/topic sentence/sentence/idea level, then slightly rewording -- who is the prof in Indiana who suggested this on his Web page? 2 | 3 | Show example 4 | 5 | meta-paragraphs, meta sentences 6 | 7 | massage until real sentences 8 | 9 | turn off your critic/editor part of your brain 10 | 11 | once I had a lot of experience with this approach, I could often write entire meta-paragraphs this way, and just remove the "4 sentence para" and "A sentence saying..." 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/typing6.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | This session will make an hour. 2 | 3 | Concentrate on accuracy, not speed. 4 | 5 | I'm not looking at the keyboard at all. Slowly getting more accurate, a little at a time. 6 | 7 | Wrist pain is currently not a problem. Wow, I am becoming more accurate. 8 | 9 | Let's try increasing the accuracy. 10 | 11 | A little improvement at a time. 12 | 13 | That one wasn't too bad. 14 | 15 | Can I do better? Certaintly. 16 | 17 | Not too shabby! 18 | 19 | How many words per minute? 20 | 21 | Almost at the hour. 22 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/typing2.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hello, dear reader! 2 | 3 | I am now using Dvorak layout. Am I any faster? 4 | 5 | Let's talk creativity. 6 | 7 | When I took Dan Friedman's advanced programming languages course, everyone else in the class wrote their programs in a functional language, such as Scheme or OCaml. I, however, decided from the very beginning to write all my programs in miniKanren, a language almost entirely unsuited to the advanced functional programming challenges in the course. 8 | 9 | This self-imposed, almost comical, level of difficulty resulted in many late nights of fun and desperate hacking. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/rules.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | * If something needs to be fixed or updated, or changed throughout the 2 | book, stop, make a pass through the book, and fix it immediately. 3 | 4 | * outline to the para, topic sentence, sentence level 5 | 6 | * be meta---apply the strats I am using in the video series to writing the book, and include in the book the strats I am using for writing the book, etc. 7 | 8 | ------------------------------ 9 | 10 | Lulz-Driven Development rule: 11 | If I lulz, it goes in the book. 12 | 13 | Writing the book should be fun and funny. 14 | Reading it, maybe not so much. 15 | 16 | When the lulz run out, so do I! 17 | 18 | Remember Day[9]: "so stupid, and so funny" 19 | 20 | Can I get Day[9] to add this blurb for the book? 21 | I'd settle for "so stupid" 22 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/announce-2.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 7 Feb 02024, Wednesday 2 | 3 | Yet Another Silent Writing Session 4 | 5 | Almost 1 am 6 | 7 | Ate, and am now no longer hungry or grumpy. 8 | A little tired still. 9 | 10 | My wrists were hurting again when trying to type in different positions. 11 | 12 | I ordered a fancy split ergonomic keyboard: a Kenesis with silent MX Cherry keys, and a "normal" key layout, rather than the weirdo recessed buckets of the super high end Kenesis keyboards. I don't want to have to relearn how to type again. 13 | 14 | Keyboard should arrive Friday. I think I'll try to avoid typing much until then. I could do a little Emacs and Scheme, but writing 3k words seems Less Good until I get a more ergonomic setup. 15 | 16 | I think I'll also get a laptop stand, so I'm looking at the screen at a reasonable height. 17 | 18 | Until then, good night! 19 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/announce.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 6 Feb 02024, Tuesday 2 | 3 | Another Silent Writing Session 4 | 5 | My goal for the year is 1 million words in the book repo. 6 | 7 | This comes out to 3,040 words per day, including today. 8 | 9 | These words must be in a *draft* of a book to count. Notes don't count. I've decided to be more strict that I had originally described. 10 | 11 | Starting with `draft-1.txt` 12 | 13 | Today's Word count: 0 / 3040 14 | 15 | Writing session: 9:56 pm -- ?? Words: 16 | 17 | Had a slight interruption... Back to writing 18 | 10:59 -- about an hour, with a slight interruption. 19 | 20 | Actually, I'm going to end this session for now. I might write some more tonight. Depends on external circumstances a bit. I'll try to start earlier tomorrow. 21 | 22 | wc -w draft-1.txt 23 | 743 draft-1.txt 24 | 25 | So roughly 1/4 my word count. It's a beginning though. 26 | 27 | Good night! 28 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /rules.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | GENERAL RULES for WILL WRITING BOOKS 2 | 3 | 1) Follow Robert Heinlein’s 5 Rules for Writing Speculative Fiction: 4 | 1. You must *write*. 5 | 2. You must *finish* what you start. 6 | 3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order. 7 | 4. You must put it on the market. 8 | 5. You must keep it on the market until sold. 9 | 10 | 2) 11 books submitted put on the market, and kept on the market util 11 | sold, by the end of 2024 12 | 13 | 3) All books are licensed under Creative Commons 14 | 15 | 4) All books are on my GitHub account 16 | 17 | 5) Record all writing of the books, and put the videos on my channel 18 | 19 | 6) Complete first draft of book is in plain text (.txt) 20 | 21 | 7) High-level schedule: 22 | a) start a book on the 1st of the month 23 | b) finish writing the book *on the topic chosen* by the end of the 24 | month 25 | c) put the book on the market on the last day of that month 26 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/typing7.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | [東方/Touhou] RADIANT DANCEFLOOR (Full Album Nonstop Mix) 2 | Frozen Starfall 3 | Sasi 4 | w 5 | Hello, World! 6 | 7 | How are you? I am fine. Great! How are you? Very well, thank you. What are you up to? 8 | 9 | Which day is it? It is Tuesday. Cool. 10 | 11 | How is your book coming along? Great! I am learning how to type. Uhhh...don't you know how? Well, sort of, but I am learning a new keyboard layout to reduce my wrist pain when typing. Oh, I guess that makes sense. How long will it take you to learn? I figure it will take me about 3 months. Hmm, that sounds like a long time. Not really, given that I haven't written a book in 6 years. 12 | 13 | I can see, then, why you would want to learn to type again. Yep! Good luck, have fun! 14 | 15 | I just remapped my navigation keys! And I remapped the function key to left control. 16 | 17 | I seem more accurate when I don't look at the keys and keep my eyes closed. 18 | 19 | Sitting for a long time is uncomfortable, which is probably good. This time I'm going to keep my eyes closed while typing. This time I'm going to type while looking at the screen. Let's try again, with fewer mistakes. I need to concentrate with all my might. 20 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/thoughts.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | DECISION: 2 | 3 | the book is about my kiloTube and milliAsimov challenge to myself 4 | 5 | "Of Course" moment getting coffee 6 | trust the "Of Course" moment. no chickening out! 7 | 8 | challenge, not experiment 9 | 10 | the book I would have wanted to send back in time to myself, 3 months ago! (or 10 years ago!) 11 | 12 | write what I needed to hear in the past, and what I'll almost certainly need to hear in the future 13 | 14 | write the book that only I can write 15 | 16 | ** align what I tell myself I care about and want to do with what I actually spend my time, attention, energy, enthusiasm on ** <= The whole point 17 | *** doing and *finishing* and *releasing to the world* *** 18 | *** about being honest and direct, and finding my own style, and stripping away the unnecessary *** 19 | 20 | tie these things to making the kiloTube or the 25 milliAsimov 21 | * create a new relational programming language <-- giving a talk at HFUG Feb 21? 22 | * music <- do a live (or one-take recorded) musical performance, uploaded to my YT 23 | channel! At least one per week. 24 | * screenplay or a novel or short stories <- 2 milliAsimov's worth of sci-fi 25 | * physics -- GR, modern understanding of classical mechanics and how related to classical reversible computing; reversible computing <- videos and experiment with language implementation and design 26 | * computer hardware and FPGAs and tape-out an ASIC; 27 | <= 8-bit Arcade Verilog thingy -- build a classic video game; Steven Hugg book 28 | <= create a miniKanren Machine and a Scheme Machine 29 | * get over ladder anxiety for SC: Brood War <- record BW ladder games 30 | make recordings of this: 31 | * make a doujinshi on the beauty of computation and sell it at Comiket in Tokyo and/or at ZIN in Akiba 32 | ** draw and paint 33 | ** Japanese 34 | 35 | Go saying: lose your first 100 games as quickly as possible 36 | Make my first 100 bad videos as quickly as possible 37 | Write my first 10 bad books as quickly as possible 38 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/book.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ** 25 days until sending to press ** 2 | 3 | "Real Artists Ship" -- SJ 4 | 5 | "We like him because he...gets on base." Moneyball 6 | 7 | "Good or bad, you are going to press." (In my best Robocop voice) 8 | 9 | "My next one will be better!" Ed Wood (at least in the movie) 10 | 11 | "This is undoubtedly the worst book I've ever heard of." 12 | "But you *have* heard of it!" me channeling Jack Sparrow 13 | 14 | ===================== 15 | 16 | Front Cover: 17 | 18 | Surprisingly Awesome: 19 | Will's Guide to Lulz-Driven Development for Idiosyncratic and Creative 20 | Thinking 21 | -or- 22 | How to Use Absurd Goals to Align What You Claim You Want to Do with 23 | how You Actually Spend Your Time and Attention 24 | 25 | by 26 | 27 | William E. Byrd 28 | 29 | -------------------- 30 | 31 | Copyright Page: 32 | 33 | CC BY 4.0 International 34 | 35 | [add link to CC BY 4.0 International license, and include the 36 | logo and the correct name of the license] 37 | 38 | This entire book can be downloaded for free from [insert URL]. 39 | 40 | -------------------- 41 | 42 | Inside Title Page: 43 | 44 | Surprisingly Awesome: 45 | Will's Guide to Lulz-Driven Development for Idiosyncratic and Creative 46 | Thinking 47 | -or- 48 | How to Use Absurd Goals to Align What You Claim You Want to Do with 49 | how You Actually Spend Your Time and Attention 50 | 51 | by 52 | 53 | William E. Byrd 54 | 55 | This entire book can be downloaded for free from [add URL]. 56 | 57 | --------------------- 58 | 59 | Table of Contents: 60 | 61 | Chapter 1: The Power of Absurdity 62 | 63 | --------------------- 64 | 65 | Chapter 1: The Power of Absurdity 66 | 67 | [4 sentence intro para, whose topic sentence explains how the more ridiculous and absurd a challenge, the easier it can be.] 68 | 69 | [4 sentence para, with a topic sentennce about Penn Jillette (check sp.) losing weight by just eating potatos. Sentence about his conversation with his friend about how to lose weight. Sentence about his friend saying that, yes, he could lose that weight, but it was going to be really hard. Sentence about this making Penn happy, because he knew he could do really hard things more successfully than easier things.] 70 | 71 | Problem: I'm struggling to make one video every two weeks. 72 | Solution: Publically commit to making 1,000 videos this year. 73 | Solution, Part 2 (for Extra Lulz!): After making a handful of videos, increase the number to 2^{10} = 1,024 so I can define a new SI unit: the *kiloTube*. 74 | 75 | Problem: For the past 15 years I have started writing dozens of books, only to abandon them within minutes, days, weeks, or months. 76 | Solution: Publically commit to finishing and submitting for publication 11 books in 11 month, and to putting videos of all writing sessions on YouTube. 77 | Solution, Part 2 (for Extra Lulz!): Make the books available on GitHub with a CC BY 4.0 International license, then try to sell the books to commercial or academic publishers! 78 | 79 | --------------------- 80 | 81 | [Book Goes Here] 82 | 83 | --------------------- 84 | 85 | Acknowledgements 86 | 87 | My parents for their support, and for splitting the cost of the fancy 88 | microphone and boom arm I use in the video series. 89 | 90 | Alex Miller for the "Suprisingly Awesome" phrase I borrowed for the title. 91 | 92 | The members of the 'Imperishable Wonderland of Infinite Fun' Discord server. 93 | 94 | --------------------- 95 | 96 | About the Author 97 | 98 | [can include my kiloTube and milliAsimov challenges, and the fact 99 | that I recorded myself writing this book] 100 | 101 | --------------------- 102 | 103 | Back Cover: 104 | 105 | Bad advice, 106 | poorly delivered 107 | Boredom ensues! 108 | 109 | CC BY 4.0 International 110 | 111 | [add license details] 112 | 113 | This entire book can be downloaded for free from [add URL]. 114 | 115 | -------------------- 116 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/attic.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Slogans: 2 | 3 | *** Success is finishing and submitting on deadline *** 4 | 5 | Brett Victor: approximately this--the most dangerous thought a 6 | creative person can have is that they know what they are doing 7 | 8 | Want to finish the book on time and put it on the market so I can get 9 | that sweet, sweet Creative Commons money! $$$$ 10 | 11 | "My next one will be better!" 12 | 13 | No practice runs, no holding back the good stuff, etc 14 | 15 | Solutions to problems, not excuses 16 | 17 | Look forward, move forward 18 | 19 | Apply the creativity's book advice to the writing of the book 20 | 21 | Write simply and directly, without dancing around with fancy style 22 | 23 | Haiku for this book: 24 | Bad advice, 25 | poorly delivered 26 | Boredom ensues! 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | Strategy for writing the book: 31 | 32 | Really meta strat: 33 | Go meta: apply the strategies of the book to the writing of the book, 34 | and include the writing of the book in the book 35 | 36 | instance of applying the meta-level strat to the book: 37 | employ the 100:10:1 approach advocated by fogus 38 | 39 | possible strats: 40 | 41 | 4. ** plan quietly, maybe in my head, maybe curled up on my bed or couch with my eyes closed, visualizing and organizing ** 42 | => 43 | 2. ** just start writing words ** 44 | is it February 29th? 45 | if yes, shop it! 46 | if no, GOTO 4 47 | 48 | 1. could start from the transcript of my Will Radio YouTube epi, and clean it up 49 | 3. create an outline 50 | 5. fill up part of a notebook with ideas 51 | 6. make a bunch of YouTube videos describing these topics, and transcribe! 52 | 7. talk to a rubber duck 53 | 8. give a talk on ideosyncratic and creative thinking 54 | 9. solicit strategies from Discord and YouTube, etc. 55 | 10. hold conversations online with people to exchange stories and ideas 56 | 57 | heruristics and rules for this book: 58 | * story-oriented could be strong 59 | * keep it grounded and specific 60 | * things in my direct experience are best 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | Strategies for Idiosyncratic and Creative Thinking 66 | 67 | by William E. Byrd 68 | 69 | [TODO insert Creative Commons Licence here] 70 | 71 | 72 | Olin Meta-advice 73 | 74 | nothing precious 75 | 76 | Fogus: 100:10:1 77 | 78 | Milos Forman advice to Ed Norton about movie making--almost doesn't matter what your first movie is about 79 | 80 | "My brain hurts just thinking about it" 81 | "His lectures make my brain hurt" -- Utah undergrad after my talk in compilers 82 | 83 | 84 | From Will Radio, Part I -- Strategies for Idiosyncratic and Creative Thinking: 85 | 86 | * identify the most promising or standard approaches to a 87 | problem, and then do anything but that (algorithms class) 88 | 89 | * 20 techniques/20 problems (Feynman) 90 | 91 | * Cisco's Rule 92 | 93 | * Olin's Rule -- standard advice is for standard outcomes 94 | (Ed Fredkin & reversible computing, kiloTube, miniKanren, most scientific advances, etc.) 95 | 96 | * "My next one will be better!" (Ed Wood, at least in the movie) 97 | 98 | * find a way to get past your self-censorship and natural aversion to looking foolish 99 | (kiloTube as a way to get into an work-a-day mindset about making videos; How to Write a Lot) 100 | 101 | * succeed epically or fail epically! (kiloTube, H211, my spelling of 'epically') 102 | 103 | * Edward Kmett's rule: do the thing people are less likely to believe is true; 104 | also, anything people laugh at (much of miniKanren) 105 | 106 | * the start of becoming good at something is being bad at something 107 | (see anything I've ever done, 108 | interesting observation I heard from HB&B: 109 | one reason kids learn quickly is they are used to being bad at things) 110 | 111 | * identify the assumptions people have about a topic, and find ways around them 112 | (impossibility proofs; on the roof with a chainsaw for cryptanalysis; program synthesis book) 113 | 114 | * play! (Feynman; Friday Night Hack Nights and Ignobel Prize) 115 | 116 | * play to explore, not to win (game night; StarCraft tournament; Day[9]'s Funday Monday) 117 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/draft-1.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | In his book, 'Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing', Dean Wesley Smith points out that for the last few decades--since the end of the "pulps"--the traditional publishing industry has allowed a writer to publish only a few books a year. Authors who wrote at a faster pace, and who wished to publish their books at a similar rate, were forced to publish under one or more pen names. With the blossoming of indie publishing, however, a writer can now publish books at the same rate as they write, and the books can be on any topic, and in any genre. 2 | 3 | This observation is directly applicable to my 11 Novel Challenge, of course. Beyond that, I think a similar argument can be made about public speaking in the age of YouTube. As a graduate student, no one asked me to give talks on my research, or about Scheme programming. My first speaking opportunity at Indiana University was one of my own making, when a fellow PhD student and I reserved a classroom so we could give a lecture to a handful of willing students on why we loved Lisp so much. We had planned an entire series of these rogue lectures, but were shut down almost immediately by an irate department secretary who told us that students weren't allowed to research classrooms. 4 | 5 | My next experience lecturing on Scheme was as an Assistant Instructor (that is, teaching assistant) in the introductory computer science course, and then in the introductory programming languages course, at Indiana. In the beginning I mostly taught recitation/lab sessions for students, tying the lecture material to the home work assignments and exams. While I found these weekly recitation sessions stimulating, exactly what I could talk about was severely restricted by the needs of the courses, and I only gave one to three sessions a week. 6 | 7 | The next opportunity I had to talk about programming languages, Scheme, and what-have-you, was when Roshan James and I attempted to reinvigorate the IU programming languages seminar, under the advisement of Professor Amr Sabry. Apparently there was a great deal of pent up demand, since PL Wonks grew to be stading room only by the time I left Bloomington. At PL Wonks students can talk about their research, or perhaps about a paper or language or idea they find exciting. Still, with so many students, and only 15 weeks in a semester, I could give maybe two Wonks talks a year. 8 | 9 | The next evolution in my ability to speak about programming languages in front of an audience was after I had been an Associate Instructor in Dan Friedman's introductory programming languages course, IU's famous 'C311'. After writing 'The Reasoned Schemer' with Dan and Oleg Kiselyov, which became one of the textbooks for the course (provided at Dan's expense, so the students didn't have to buy it!), and after being a C311 AI for several years, I started giving lectures when Dan was traveling to a conference or otherwise was unable to make it to class. After 11 semesters of being Dan's TA, I think I gave at least one lecture on every topic in the course, other than some of the "special topics" Dan would sprinkle in every semester. 10 | 11 | Even after co-writing a book, however, I was still only giving two or three lectures per semester, on topics largely constrained by the needs of C311. 12 | 13 | It wasn't until well after I finished my PhD that people started inviting me to give talks on miniKanren or Scheme or functional/relational programming. 14 | 15 | I remain grateful for each of these speaking opportunities, and I learned a tremendous amount while at Indiana. At the same time--especially as a new graduate student, but even as a postdoc or research scientist--there are a relatively small number of chances to give talks about programming languages if you have to wait to be invited to speak somewhere, or even if you are a teaching assistant. And for many of these opportunities, there are severe restrictions on which topics are in scope. For undergraduates, hobbyists, and industry programmers, the speaking opportunities are generally even more infrequent. 16 | 17 | YouTube, Twitch, and other Internet-based video sharing and streaming services change this. Just like how indie publishing allows authors to publish books on any topic, in any genre, as quickly as they can write, services like YouTube allow anyone with access to a computer, smartphone, or tablet to share their expertise, or to live code developing a new application, 18 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/awesome-notes.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | First page. 2 | 3 | This entire book can be downloaded for free from . 4 | 5 | LULZ 6 | 7 | If this book were a Touhou Project game, it would be "Highly Responsive to Lulz". 8 | 9 | Sean Day[9] Plott: "So stupid, and so funny." Let this be our mantra. 10 | 11 | 12 | "So stupid, so funny, so ridiculous, and so effective." 13 | 14 | In other words, Surprisingly Awesome 15 | 16 | --------------------- 17 | 18 | Chapter: 19 | Humor and absurdity as the basis for creativity 20 | 21 | 22 | Everything I love about miniKanren was based on either a dare or on a joke. 23 | 24 | fogus: 25 | miniKanren miniConfo 26 | The Unreasonable Schemers 27 | FriedByrd ** lulz 28 | 29 | ------------------------ 30 | 31 | The Power of Absurdity 32 | 33 | Problem: I'm struggling to make one video every two weeks. 34 | Solution: Publically commit to making 1,000 videos this year. 35 | Solution, Part 2 (for Extra Lulz!): After making a handful of videos, increase the number to 2^{10} = 1,024 so I can define a new SI unit: the *kiloTube*. 36 | 37 | Problem: For the past 15 years I have started writing dozens of books, only to abandon them within minutes, days, weeks, or months. 38 | Solution: Publically commit to finishing and submitting for publication 11 books in 11 month, and to putting videos of all writing sessions on YouTube. 39 | Solution, Part 2 (for Extra Lulz!): Make the books available on GitHub with a CC BY 4.0 International license, then try to sell the books to commercial or academic publishers! 40 | 41 | --------------------- 42 | 43 | talk about the mental challenges of creating things: 44 | 45 | the pause/Alex Honnold moment on the ledge--the equivalent in the middle of a talk for my first N talks 46 | 47 | wishing that I might suddenly get sick or an extreme weather even will cancel the conference or whatever a few hours before I am scheduled to speak 48 | 49 | wanting to shift away from whatever I'm doing to something else, including working on another talk or another book or whatever 50 | 51 | started working on a blog several times: 52 | * create blog infrastructure 53 | * create welcome post--yay! 54 | * start writing first technical post 55 | ** post balloons to 20 pages, without signs of ending 56 | ** decide that blogs suck and I should turn the post into a book 57 | *** stop working on blog and start working on book 58 | **** set up book infrastructure 59 | **** start writing book 60 | **** give up after 10% or 20% when I get stuck 61 | => throw it all away and watch YouTube instead 62 | REPEAT! 63 | 64 | how to get over this? 65 | 66 | What is the relationship between idiosyncratic and creative thinking and finishing things? 67 | 68 | I once complained about how deadline-driven academic programming languages is; I was told, multiple times, by multiple people, that "deadlines make things happen." I was never very satusfied by this claim, since other fields use journals with rolling deadlines, etc., and seem to work okay. 69 | 70 | Maybe deadlines are helpful not because they make things happen, but because they make things *stop* happening 71 | 72 | Productive Procrastination web page and book -- use external deadlines to make up for a lack of self-discipline to time-box activities that otherwise you would gold-plate and spend unbounded amounts of time on 73 | 74 | "if you need something done quickly, give it to the busiest person you know" 75 | 76 | not having time to mess around or over-think or "Nobel-prize-ize" in your head is a super power 77 | 78 | student-athletes at my HS as an example--the top students were also all athletes, sometimes in multiple sports. They had incredible time management skills. Well, at least in the sense that they didn't have time to mess around. 79 | 80 | Day[9] thoughts on losing energy when working on things you don't care about for a long time, even if they are easy/unchallenging. The importance of stimulation 81 | => 82 | very true--me at Greentop, me making videos and writing this book (cook, dishes, trash, hack, email, making forward progress on big, scary, nebulous tasks I don't know how to approach, taking a first step, and then another, and then continuing, especially with help) 83 | 84 | the power of mutual recursion when working with another person on something nebulous--both rubber ducking and forcing function, and new idea injection, and energy injection 85 | 86 | just work on it for 5 minutes--get into the zone 87 | 88 | George Lucas and original Star Wars script ~1975: sat in front of the typewritter for 8 hours a day, regardless of whether he was typing anything 89 | 90 | power of boredom 91 | power of reducing stimulation and removing youself from quick and easy stimulation loops 92 | 93 | Day[9] -- if you want to write a book, you have to write words, which means you have to sit in front of your computer and type on the keyboard (or the equivalent for some other modality). So ultimately, you need to find a way to make yourself type on the keyboard for a certain amount of time each day/week. Not turning on a Twitch or YT stream, or playing a game, etc. 94 | 95 | Aziz: had a separate "work requiring concentration" user account on his MacBook, without email login, internet blocked, whatever. He would use fast user switching if he needed to check email or whatever. There was enough friction in switching accounts that he wouldn't do it unless necessary when hacking on his compiler or writing a paper or whatever 96 | 97 | the power of working in public: coffee shop, with other people doing the same task, with a friend at a certain time each week, on GitHub, on YT or Twitch or whatever, ... 98 | 99 | --------------------- 100 | 101 | what have I learned so far from my experiments with making a kiloTube of YT vids and 11 books in 2024? 102 | 103 | well, came up with two funny units: the kiloTube (kT) and the milliAsimov (mA) 104 | 105 | I want to produce at least 1 kT of videos and 25 mA of books by the end of 2024. 106 | 107 | * working in public 108 | * public commitment 109 | * ridiculous sounding goals that aren't really ridiculous, but represent a radically different point of view requiring a fundament rethinking of success and subgoals and expectations and habits and methodology and tools and all the rest 110 | * factory-like mindset 111 | * have to produce so much that (1) I am constantly doing the thing (2) I by necessity have to refine my process on an ongoing basis (3) I can't worry about whether anyone else will like it, or if it is any good (4) I don't have time for complete re-writing or re-recording 112 | * much better alignment of what I tell myself I want to do and what I'm actually doing 113 | * self-imposed deadlines not to "make things happen" but to "make things done", which turns out to be all the difference! I actually wrote quite a bit over the years--I'm quite good at "making things happen". I'm very bad at "making things done". 114 | * getting used to shipping things 115 | * nothing precious 116 | * getting over FOMO--I write to write a book on X, and a book on Y, and design and implement a new language, and make videos, and write more papers, etc. Which one do I choose? A: all of them! 117 | * Nelson quote about about going right at them! I tend to spend way too much time preparing, when I should remember that (1) in research you are never really prepared and (2) I'm probably prepared *enough*, and if not, once I make the direct assault on what I'm doing and bounce off of it, I will have *learned* what I need to learn, at a minimum, to make progress on the task or problem. Very experienced scientists/comp sci peeps often just go to the figures/typing judgements/other key figures of a paper, since (1) that's where the meat is and (2) the authors can use fancy words to make their work sound great or important, but the figures often tell a different story and (3) to see if they could replicate or implement what is in the figures. 118 | 119 | --------------------- 120 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /book1/messages.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hello! 2 | 3 | Welcome to Will's Silent Writing Session! 4 | 5 | It is Toooo Late by far for me to record audio, so I am going to record myself writing. 6 | 7 | Visual Radio! 8 | 9 | I have been thinking about Book 1, and about writing books, and all that, quite a bit. I so far have been slow at writing Book 1, although I have been more active in writing myself notes during the day, using Apple Notes app, which is kinda wonky, but is at least sync'd between my phone and lappy. 10 | 11 | I've also been reading books by Dean Wesley Smith at a furious pace, one book per night. He is of the Old Skool Pulp Fiction tradition, at least by temperment. He was a publisher of Harlan Ellison, who could crank out words in any environment, about any type of story or plot, like clockwork. 12 | 13 | In 'Writing a Novel in Seven-Days: A Hands-on Example', Smith blogs about writing a novel from scratch, 43,000 words, in 7 days, while working a 44 hour work week, getting a decent night's sleep, watching some TV, etc. Because it is fun! He was able to hit his increasing word counts: 14 | 15 | 3,700 16 | 5,100 17 | 5,600 18 | 6,050 19 | 7,500 20 | 8,050 21 | 7,000 22 | 23 | for a total of 43,050 words. 24 | 25 | As the novel progressed, his writing got faster. 26 | 27 | Even at his slowest, though, he was on pace for: 28 | 29 | (* 3700 365) => 1350500 30 | 31 | 1.3 million words a year (assuming he wrote every day) 32 | 33 | At that pace he could take weekends off, for example, and still probably hit a million words. 34 | 35 | His novel went to press in it's first draft, with editing, but without a major rewrite. 36 | 37 | 38 | He also mentions that, from talking with other authors, the number of 1 million words written seems to be special. I was just reading Jerry Pournelle's advice on how to get his job in which he says 1 million words written, finished, polished (and perhaps thrown away) is probably the right amount / minimal amount for an inspiring writer to learn the craft. 39 | 40 | The interesting thing to me about Smith is that he could keep up that pace (and then some!) at age 65 while working a full-time job. His whole point was, "If I can do it, what is stopping you?" 41 | 42 | I really haven't written that many words on Book 1 yet (as of Sunday, Feb 4): 43 | 44 | 595 attic.txt 45 | 1275 awesome-notes.txt 46 | 536 book.txt 47 | 73 ideas.txt 48 | 122 rules.txt 49 | 328 thoughts.txt 50 | 2929 total 51 | 52 | Of course I've been trying to screw up my courage and feel my way around, and figure out what my book is about. 53 | 54 | Still, I feel like I'm treating my words as a little too...Precious, as Toki would say. 55 | 56 | Hmmm--I've got an idea!!! :) :P 57 | 58 | (You probably can guess where this is going...) 59 | 60 | Up the challenge, yet again! 61 | 62 | Time for Operation Pulp Speed 63 | 64 | Burger Time it! 65 | 66 | I just wrote 468 words. EZ. 67 | 68 | My new challenge, on top of the kiloTube of YT vids, and the 11 books, all in 2024, is to... 69 | 70 | write a million words in 2024. 71 | 72 | This doesn't have to be in the books, alone. I'm not sure my books can handle a million words. 73 | 74 | Well, maybe they can, if I violate the No Rewiting Unless to Editorial Demand rule of Heinlein. 75 | 76 | I guess if I wrote Book 5 five times from scratch, that would be putting in some words. 77 | 78 | And I remember Olin's Meta-advice about listening to standard advice for standard outcomes, but following your own nose when it comes to what you care about. 79 | 80 | Since this whole exercise--the Challenges, that is--is to get me to complete things by making things less Precious by entering Assembly Line/Factory/Burger Restaurant Mode/Pulp Speed mindspace, the idea that I can rewrite Book 1 5 times from scratch, so long as I finish by the end of February, makes sense to me. 81 | 82 | After all, I already have a forcing function: the book is going out the door on the 29th. I don't mind sending out the 4th or 5th complete draft, rather than the first draft--send out the one that is best. 83 | 84 | Another way to think about it is to follow Dan's rule of writing--when there is a question about which of two ways to write a chapter of a book, try both! Finish both versions. Then throw at least one version away! 85 | 86 | The 2017 ICFP pearl and 2012 pearl and prefaces and forewords I've worked on all benefitted immensely from rewrites--very significant rewrites, and sometimes 5 separate drafts. Usually by draft 3 to 5 things start to coallesce. <- you know what I mean. 87 | 88 | 755 words so far! 89 | 90 | Significantly longer than what I've written so far. 91 | 92 | Oops--I clicked on the Stop button on the MBP toolbar thingy. Another failure mode. I just figured out I can click on the X to minimize the toolbar and keep me from clicking on Stop accidentally. 93 | 94 | Yes, I think writing a million words this year sounds write/right!! :P 95 | 96 | Happy Accident 97 | 98 | That will get me squarely into Burger Timing mode: make moar burgers!! (Veggie burgers) Moar product. Another busload of customers have arrived. Flip faster! Pulp Speed, as Smith calls it. 99 | 100 | I'll bet you that if I write at Pulp Speed, *and* do 3 to 5 drafts in the month, I could produce a book that is better than if I had obsessed over every word, but only written one draft (and prolly abandoned it 1/3 of the way through). 101 | 102 | Yep, that's what I'm going to do. 103 | 104 | I have to say, after reading the double-volume Asimov auto-biography, I was practically on fire with the desire to write, and to write a lot! 105 | 106 | And I'll also say that with making the videos at what sounds like a furious and ridiculous and unsustainable pace, I'm already starting to feel a modicum of what Asimov must have felt. Can I squeeze in a video between these two meetings? Can I get in a little writing tonight? Etc. 107 | 108 | I'm even starting to get the itch to write deciAsimov's worth of books, not just milliAsimov's. 109 | 110 | Potential Issues: 111 | 112 | * working full time, and then some. Smith shows that isn't an excuse. In fact, much of my writing will be connected to my research. I'm *supposed* to be writing. Many of my million words will be on papers, I suspect. (I'm not sure how much of that I will be able to show--we'll see.) 113 | 114 | * necessity to be quiet in early mornings and late at night--turns out that QuickTime Player lets you choose 'None' as the microphone input for a screen recording! Learned that tonight. Necessity being the Mother of Invention... 115 | 116 | * risk of repetitive strain injury from typing. This is real. I've suffered from this before, to a lesser extent. I will have to experiment with my setup. Worst comes to worst, I might end up using an LLM for transcription, or whatever. I even found fancy microphones you can talk into that are like foam funnels, to keep your voice from carrying. I'll figure it out! That's part of this adventure. DS Billy: "I want solutions, not excuses." 117 | 118 | 1169 words so far 119 | 120 | Okay, that is settled. 1 million words by the end of 2024. I really don't know if I can do this one. On the other hand, I didn't think I could do 1 kiloTube a few weeks ago, and now I think it's actually pretty easy. Not sure 11 books is easy, but I'll bet you if I write a million words, and allocate them to books, 11 books won't be so hard. Really, it's probably more like I'll write 50 books, if I end up writing 5 drafts of each. That sounds more like it. 11 books seemed a bit wimpy. 50 complete drafts sounds more interesting, and would definitely make me streeeetch and grow and be creative and discover interesting techniques, and also to streamline what I do. 121 | 122 | No type for excess ornament or pretension or messing around if I have 50 book drafts to write by end of year. 123 | 124 | Tonight I looked at the CC licenses on MIT Press books using Scheme or Racket: 125 | 126 | SICP: CC BY 4.0 International (the one I've put on Book 1) 127 | 128 | SDF: CC BY Non-Commercial 129 | 130 | Essentials of Compilation: CC BY Non-Commercial No-Derivatives 131 | 132 | Interesting. For Book 2 (TMBPEW) I can imagine a publisher actually wanting the book. (For Book 1, maybe not so much--I don't know.) I could imagine using CC BY Non-Commercial, especially if MIT Press published it. The No-Derivatives clause seems too restrictive to me, though. MIT Press also has some new Open initiative in which libraries contribute $$$$ in order to make new books freely available. I'm not sure I understand that program, although it sounds interesting. 133 | 134 | In any case, Book 1 is the same license as SICP, so I'm in good company! I would be fine with Book 2 being CC BY Non-Commercial, I *think*, although maybe there is something I'm missing. I'd be interested in your thoughts. 135 | 136 | 1482 words so far 137 | 138 | My wrists are bothering me a little. Any suggestions about that? 139 | 140 | I think tomorrow I'll try typing at a different desk, to see how that feels. I can't mess around with RSI. That would derail all my efforts, and cause other issues. Gotta protect my wrists. 141 | 142 | 1532 words so far 143 | 144 | I think I'm going to call it a night. Maybe read some more Smith. Anyone who has published 100+ books can teach me something. 145 | 146 | See you soon! :) 147 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------