commit 68093f19cb54d29f9a875b95749d85cc6898102f
parent 3b334989996ee664ee49d28b653b6eb643d2da2e
Author: Eamon Caddigan <eamon.caddigan@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2025 20:36:57 -0700
Add weeknote for 2025-W37
Diffstat:
1 file changed, 62 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/content/posts/weeknotes/2025-w37/index.md b/content/posts/weeknotes/2025-w37/index.md
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+---
+title: "Weeknote for 2025-W37"
+description: "Developing a writing habit"
+date: 2025-09-14T19:38:04-07:00
+draft: false
+categories:
+- Weeknotes
+---
+
+They say it takes six weeks to form a habit, but as far as I can tell, [the
+research](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11641623/) suggests an
+average closer to two months---depending on the habit being undertaken and the
+individual being studied. Nevertheless, I find myself six weeks into an attempt
+to build a new habit to help with my writing, and some links have come my way
+that feel relevant to the effort.
+
+Specifically, I've committed to doing a little bit of writing (at least 5
+minutes), most days (4–5 days/week), as a "swooper"[^swooper]. I have a bad
+habit of procrastinating on the parts of a writing I should be composing by
+editing parts I've already written, which leads to a lot of wasted effort. Now
+I'm trying to write things in a single go, without scrolling up to change
+earlier parts of an unfinished piece. The "how" matters more than the "what";
+I've done this for journal entries[^journal], emails/reports at work, and
+attempts at flash fiction. I doubt this will make me a _better_ writer, but it
+should make me a faster one. If I'm going to write artlessly I should at least
+get it over quickly.
+
+First, [writes.casa](https://writes.casa) is wrapping up its second week of
+collecting and publishing anonymous short submissions. There's a new topic each
+week, and the list of languages it accepts has already grown since launch. As I
+write this I've yet to submit anything, but it would make a great outlet if I
+produce any non-technical prose that feels worthy of edits.
+
+Les Orchard's [Tarot Thing](https://lmorchard.github.io/tarot-thing/) is a
+great source for prompts for non-technical prose. I've been using it liberally
+in my attempts at writing fiction. (My goal is to _write_, not think of things
+to write.)
+
+I'm enjoying the contributions to the [Vim
+carnival](https://lazybea.rs/vim-carnival-sept-2025/). [I already wrote a spiel
+about Vim]({{< ref "/posts/vim/" >}}), but lately when I'm not tapping on my
+phone screen I'm using Neovim with [LazyVim](http://www.lazyvim.org/) for all
+my writing. It took a while to get used to this whole new set of plugins, but
+the stock configuration actually works quite well for prose.
+
+Finally, I'm late to the party with this one, but I only recently learned that
+the [nonprofit behind National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo)
+dissolved](https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/01/nanowrimo-shut-down-after-ai-content-moderation-scandals/)
+earlier this year. I was part of the crowd that was disappointed by recent
+decisions they've made, but I'm sad to see things end this way. Over the past
+20 years I've made several attempts---none complete---to write 50,000 words in
+November. To honor the spirit of NaNoWriMo---which needn't be tied to any
+particular organization---I plan to make another attempt this November, and
+will track my progress on [writingmonth.org](https://writingmonth.org).
+
+[^swooper]: As defined by Vonnegut: "Swoopers write a story quickly,
+ higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it
+again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn't
+work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they
+go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done."
+
+[^journal]: I'm still a big fan of [izzzzi](https://izzzzi.net).
