
Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction - michael_nielsen
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html
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quantumhobbit
Pretty common but useful advice. His advocacy of text editors is different
though. I'm noticing a trend of SciFi writers like Neal Stephenson and now
Cory Doctorow who use programmer's text editors such as emacs and vim rather
than conventional word processors or novel specific tools like CopyWrite. I
don't buy that spell check is that annoying. You can turn it off, and novelist
specific tools claim not to be distracting, though I haven't tried any. Is
emacs really that much better for creative work or do they want to appear
smart/cool by using the same tools as the "hackers" they write about?

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jcl
That sounds like a trend of two. I think it is more likely that both
Stephenson and Doctorow were programmers earlier in their careers (implied in
their Wikipedia articles -- Doctorow founded a software company and Stephenson
switched to a physics major so that he could "spend more time on the
university mainframe"). And once you know a text editor really well ( _any_
text editor, even Word), it is simply most efficient to keep using it; there
are apparently still professional writers who won't use an editor that lacks
WordStar keybindings.

However, it would not surprise me at all to learn that there is significant
overlap between "people who learn to program" and "people who want to write
sci-fi novels". I just don't think we'll hear about Toni Morrison picking up
emacs anytime soon.

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jseliger
Funny—I linked to a bunch of articles making similar points in my post on
students, laptops, and distraction at
[http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-
di...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-distraction-
hardly-a-surprise) . I suspect the people who accomplish the most are often
the ones who can concentrate the longest.

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jwesley
Unremarkable lifehack-type article, but still a good reminder to cut out
distractions and do some actual work.

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michael_nielsen
Most lifehack articles are written by people of modest accomplishments, and,
personally, I find it difficult to take them seriously. Doctorow has
accomplished quite a lot - certainly, far more than most of the productivity
"gurus" - and I think it's much more interesting to hear what he thinks is
important.

~~~
sielskr
It's true Doctorow is accomplished, but it is also true that most accomplished
people cannot be objective about the factors behind their success. It is one
thing to have all the skills and motivations to succeed; another to be able to
report on those skills and motivations with enough honesty to teach others.

~~~
michael_nielsen
That's a good point. I do think that when advice is very detailed and
specific, it's more likely to be accurate. When people are fooling themselves,
or trying to fool their audience, with this kind of thing, they usually speak
in generalities. It's too much mental hard work to make up something very
specific, like "You should use vim or something like it", followed by detailed
reasons why that's a good idea; that, to me, has the ring of something
Doctorow has thought about a good deal. I'm _not_, of course, speaking of
'specifics' like the "20 minute" number he talks about; it's a detail, sure,
but one that is very easy to make up.

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Eliezer
20 damned minutes? That's what it takes him to bang out "a couple of pages"?
It's easy to be productive if you're frickin' Superman.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Every fiction writer has a different working style, but I've seen lots of them
suggest that it's good to bang out prose at a fairly steady pace. Jim
Macdonald:

[http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=82327&...](http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=82327&postcount=40)

 _When you're writing, don't slow down.

Yes, you will do research ... you'll need to know exactly what kind of car
your guy is driving, but during the outline/first draft stage isn't when I do
it.

I'll research a bunch before, and after during rewrite and revision. The rule
in the middle is "don't slow down."_

In fiction you're trying to describe a time stream of events and
conversations, and it's easier to feel the pace of your prose if you're typing
it at a steady clip. Musicians get the same advice: Get in the habit of
playing through your mistakes while staying with the beat, or you will develop
a style that sounds choppy and hesitant and that calls attention to every
mistake.

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pmjordan
I'll tell you what's distracting: the flashing ad banner on the left.

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GavinB
I find that I have the exact opposite experience from Doctorow. The hardest
thing for me is to get started. Once I'm going I can bang out a lot of text. I
always get my best writing done after I'm warmed up and emotionally involved
in the scene.

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djm
I got bored reading this article but I generally like Cory Doctorow's sci-fi
writing. His book Little Brother was great and every now and again I seek out
a futuristic hacker* short story he wrote called "0nz0red".

*the other meaning of the word

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mand0
0wnz0red

[http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/...](http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/index.html)

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MaskedFinancier
Interesting that Suzy Orman has just decided to distribute her latest book
free online in standard PDF form. See my post at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=427164> for more info. I'd like to know
what Cory thinks!

