writing is hard because there's no feedback

Last updated Nov 14, 2022

• Concept
• On craft writing

• I keep on wondering – why is it that I seem to find it easier, and work more obsessively on, projects that involve interfaces? Things like making games and web design are just as mentally taxing for me as writing (sometimes), but they are “easier” to do.

  • I suspect this is because I can easily sink in hours just fiddling around with menus and stuff. It’s visualized – I can see the direct results of what I’m doing. My ideas can be fleshed out as immediately as I think them (almost, anyways)

• But with writing, there is no interface. It’s pure thought (again, almost). There’s no UI I could fiddle with, and the problems that I need to tackle are

  • A) producing “stuff” (ideas, words, characters, dialogue)
  • B) making sure that it is technically & thematically good

• I think I need to find a way to make writing fun for me in the same way that fiddling with CSS or working on a Unity project is fun.

  • Perhaps I could focus on the words and their rhythm, make writing a sentence is the most important unit of writing exercise how Camille always emphasized? I don’t think I’ve tried it in earnest

• Immediate feedback is important for learning, and in writing there’s no real immediate feedback at the sentence-level. Just the sound, perhaps. That’s why writing groups are so useful – they could give you story-level feedback before you publish