33 | Dividing the Creative Process
How I work faster by dividing up writing and editing - write first and then edit. And space factories and significance of days
Good morning,
This week on Future Talk, Sam and I discuss the future of home appliances. It quickly turns into a conversation about security, and I end up frightened by what could happen if home networks aren’t kept secure.
You can catch up with episodes on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more.
As I type this1, I’m brain-farting onto my keyboard. I’m putting together loose thoughts and writing them2. Later3, I’ll edit them. I may not publish what I’ve typed4. But I’m writing it down anyway.
Why?
Because that’s how I’m able to write, I have two sides of my brain - the writing side and the editing side. On the writing side, I brain-fart words onto the page. And the editing side… edits. If I combined these sides, I wouldn’t get anywhere. I’d probably still be on the first sentence or paragraph.
Now, I’m on the fourth paragraph (that’s if you count a one-word question as a paragraph). By being comfortable5 with this process, I work6 faster. I may make mistakes. But I have the confidence that Editing Harry will fix the mistakes.
When I wrote code7 professionally, I followed ‘Test-Driven Development’, or TDD. TDD is where8 you first write a test that the code must follow. For example, it must return a certain result. Then, you write the code. Once the code passes the test, you can re-write it to make it more efficient. Knowing9 that if it doesn’t work, the test will fail.
TDD is an example of writing and then editing.
What’s remarkable is how much longer editing takes than writing. It takes me a while to edit. And yet, I’ve spent only a few minutes getting to this paragraph. Once I’ve finished brain-farting these words, I’ll turn off my music and close this tab. In a few hours, I’ll open this page10 and ask myself a few questions:
I’m lucky that I write these newsletters a few days in advance. So I can wait14 a few hours before editing. But in some cases15, such as writing a work email, that luxury isn’t there. So despite that16, I’ll still brain-fart and then edit. While also hoping I don’t press ‘send’ before editing!
(See footnotes for pre-editing)
👀 Recommendations 👀
🛰🎧 Delian Asparouhov - Pomp Podcast. Pomp talks to Delian, the prince of Miami (he’s behind the famous tweet Mayor Suarez responded to). They discuss Varda; a company Delian invested in that is building space factories. Why space factories? Some products, such as synthetic organs, are easier to make in space thanks to zero-gravity. At Varda, they say every day what day it is since they started. I like that approach because it emphasizes the sense of importance and urgency behind the mission.
🏦🌎 Designing Internet-Native Economies: A Guide to Crypto Tokens - Future. Patrick Rivera gives an insightful introductory post about crypto tokens. If you’ve been wondering about them, this is the post for you. He goes beyond financial applications and explains how tokens could enter the territory that Web 2.0 owns.
“But what if you could send a “Top Backend Engineer” NFT to the best backend engineers you’ve ever worked with? Or a “Very Helpful VC” NFT to a board member? The benefit of these badges being NFTs is that you can prove they came from a specific person and that it’s scarce (e.g. you’ve only ever given out three of these). I’d much rather hire someone based on referrals from people I respect than a fancy degree.”
That’s all for this week.
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“As I type this now”
“writing them down”
“And later”
“What I type now may not even be what I publish”
“By making myself comfortable”
“I can work”
“When I used to write”
“is a practice where”
“With the knowledge”
“open the page up"
“Is what I’m saying relevant?”
“Am I using unnecessary words?”
“Is my writing verbose?”
“I can afford to wait”
“In some cases though”
“But despite that”