Just write
Firstly, yes, I missed yesterday's entry. Just didn't have the time to fit it in. In addition though, I couldn't think of something even remotely interesting to write about. It would have been at most a paragraph basically saying "I can't think of anything". This is a waste of my time and your time reading it. I want to try and post here everyday, but not for the sake of it.
Now, for today's post I was inspired by something I saw on Bluesky which showed a basic drawing followed by a better version of it. The idea behind it is that it's important to at least create the thing first, even if it's rough, and then you can polish it later. If you try and go for perfection first time around, you're less likely to create it in the first place.
Whilst I'm not an artist, this sentiment very much applies to writing. It was an approach I took for writing my PhD thesis in its second half and where blogging really helped with this process.
I would first write ideas I had surrounding my research as blog posts. Just getting the ideas down on the "page". This got me thinking more about my topic and crucially meant I actually had something typed. Then later one after several different posts I could go back and see what it was I had come up with and notice how they linked together. Afterwards I could then create a fresh new Word document and start stitching together these different blog posts. Tidy them up and add supporting research. Ultimately going from a slightly messy blog post to a polished piece of academic work.
This might initially sound like more work, but actually - for me - it was the most efficient I've ever been at writing. The blog posts themselves didn't take too long as I was just getting the ideas down out of my head and thinking aloud. Very much writing as a research methodology (it is a thing and not enough academics use it). Then, because I had done the "hard part" of thinking, it was about rearranging and checking that work. Most of the word count had already been done and by the time you add additional connections and additional clarification, the word count continues to increase.
During the last couple of months, in terms of polished chapters for the thesis, I actually wrote the last three chapters incredibly quickly. In large part because the skeleton for those chapters had been done. The Introduction and Conclusion chapters soon followed. These also easy to write because by this point I understood my thesis and what it was I revealing about the videogames medium.
Writing at the first go does not need to be perfect, but if you don't write anything because you think it needs to be perfect first time, or that this will save you time. It won't. Just write.
Now, for today's post I was inspired by something I saw on Bluesky which showed a basic drawing followed by a better version of it. The idea behind it is that it's important to at least create the thing first, even if it's rough, and then you can polish it later. If you try and go for perfection first time around, you're less likely to create it in the first place.
Whilst I'm not an artist, this sentiment very much applies to writing. It was an approach I took for writing my PhD thesis in its second half and where blogging really helped with this process.
I would first write ideas I had surrounding my research as blog posts. Just getting the ideas down on the "page". This got me thinking more about my topic and crucially meant I actually had something typed. Then later one after several different posts I could go back and see what it was I had come up with and notice how they linked together. Afterwards I could then create a fresh new Word document and start stitching together these different blog posts. Tidy them up and add supporting research. Ultimately going from a slightly messy blog post to a polished piece of academic work.
This might initially sound like more work, but actually - for me - it was the most efficient I've ever been at writing. The blog posts themselves didn't take too long as I was just getting the ideas down out of my head and thinking aloud. Very much writing as a research methodology (it is a thing and not enough academics use it). Then, because I had done the "hard part" of thinking, it was about rearranging and checking that work. Most of the word count had already been done and by the time you add additional connections and additional clarification, the word count continues to increase.
During the last couple of months, in terms of polished chapters for the thesis, I actually wrote the last three chapters incredibly quickly. In large part because the skeleton for those chapters had been done. The Introduction and Conclusion chapters soon followed. These also easy to write because by this point I understood my thesis and what it was I revealing about the videogames medium.
Writing at the first go does not need to be perfect, but if you don't write anything because you think it needs to be perfect first time, or that this will save you time. It won't. Just write.