Writing productively, writing prolifically
What is the ``secret’’ to writing a ``lot’’, if there is such a ``secret’’?
Two factors especially seem to affect: how quickly writing is done, whether writing and specifically this pace of writing can be sustained and then how long, and so how much writing is done in total.
Comment. Whether these factors are a ``secret’’ or not…probably not. Most secrets are secrets only because they are written in books. But these two factor are unfortunately becoming less and less easy to obtain. Maybe that is why they are not enough generally known. People think less about things they believe they can’t have. Which is quite reasonable.
1. Uninterrupted free time.
Problem. Most people don't have it. They also can’t get it. In most circumstances it’s too difficult to obtain. Writing has some value. But it does not have infinite value. Obtaining more uninterrupted free time requires changing most of the circumstances in a life. Too often that makes it too expensive. It’s a big problem in our civilization.
Herbert Simon conjectured many decades in the past that attention will be a more and more scarce resource over time. Likewise he also conjectured that work that can be interrupted more frequently, work that is more modular, will be more often completed. Much more of it will be done. However, most creative work actually cannot be made more modular, it seems, and benefits enormously from even slightly more uninterrupted time being available.
It matters: (a) how much free time, (b) that it is uninterrupted free time.
Niels Bohr had apparently said it: he needed a place where nobody could prevent him from working. This provided the uninterrupted free time presumably.
Problem. Most people today don't have such a place; and they also can’t acquire such a place. In most circumstances it’s too difficult to obtain. Too expensive. Again.
The greatest trouble is that uninterrupted free time, and this in the correct environment, today, is too often something that must be purchased, and yet the price is also too great. Accidental circumstances must subsidize it.
So the great issue of human productivity is once again is path dependence. In some coincidental circumstances, where people are coming from, it’s much easier to get uninterrupted free time without having to pay for it. Too often, if somebody has to pay for it, they either can’t or they can but it’s not worth it, a vicious circle.
Comment. That is part of what makes it extremely difficult, in the circumstance most people are coming from, to make creative work pay. More often than not, either people get a lot done, but it costs more than it earns, given their pre-existing circumstances, or else they simply can’t get much done, not enough uninterrupted free time. Whether it pays or not depends where they are coming from. It’s an enormous problem civilization will have to solve with technology.
2. There is a related issue: burnout. Minimize it.
Problem. Hard.
Why does burnout happen? It seems because most human memory actually works slower than real time. This is also why amnesia of the last few hours is possible. Specifically, working memory is real time, yes, but very limited. (George Miller, Magic Number Seven.) It is the only memory that also seems to involve anything like storing bits of information - other memory is not like that. But it takes longer than real time to update the rest of memory. Which creates a bottleneck.
As it happens, busy work like paperwork is very draining for this reason. Relies a lot on memory rather than just processing.
Question. What kind of work do most people do and spend most of every day doing?
Comment. ``The Famous Reference.’’ Philip Ballard, Obliviscence and reminiscence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913. Read it.
After doing a lot of other things that all involve memory, you're just not able to write or work much beyond a certain point that day. (a)
It's not merely distraction but specifically distraction that all clutters up that long term memory bottleneck. Most creativity comes from that long term memory, which is constructive and preconscious and massively parallel. The conscious brain picks what it likes from that space and produces a kind of stream, and this is what gets written, a kind of story. (b).
Comment. ``The Famous Reference.’’ Frederic Bartlett, Remembering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932. Read it.
Comment. ``The Famous Reference.’’ Lawrence Kubie, Neurotic distortion of the creative process, Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 1958. Read it.
This is why listening to music - even loud music - may not have any effect on writing a lot. You can listen and write. While hearing a conversation is often very distracting and likely prevents creative writing.
It seems the first point is actually emergent from these two effects in the second point.
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Disclaimer. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License ©Len Alexander. This text is a popular, speculative discussion about a subject matter that interests the author. It is solely the personal opinion of the author. Consider it as mere conjecture, provided for entertainment. Regarding it no warranties of any kind exist. No promise to do anything or that anything in particular is or was done is present.