Monday, October 29, 2012

750words

I have been intrigued this morning by the idea of 750words.com. The writing process is significant, a means of discovery cultivated by formation of words. First for myself, occasionally also for others, it helps bring clarity to what I think, feel, believe, hope. I want to become more fluent with such words and, as with spoken language, development of fluency requires practice.

So the writing part is obvious, but why 750words.com?

First, the format. Incomplete little notes are scattered about my world -- grocery lists, people to call, tasks to complete, quotes, sprouted ideas, barely-planted seeds of ideas, metaphors, and more. I like the thought of writing "to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out" before putting them to words. While I'll surely keep jotting random notes, a quick morning writing exercise may help to sort and sift thoughts, or at least store them more searchably for later.

Starting Small:
the Egg
Second, the badges. While not convinced that I'll do the 750words thing for an extended time, I do intend to use it as a means of developing ideas and language. Sometimes writing is easy, other times not so much. Badges are a goofy little way to mark achievement of goals, adding fun to the process. I've named three to pursue: the Flamingo of Consistency, the Hamster of Focus, and the Early Rooster of Discipline.

Finally, the analysis. Seriously -- check out the site creator's page of graphs and various other tidbits. I love this stuff! Participants' writings are automatically analyzed, too, more like this. The mix of subjective experience and objective analysis is fascinating. The reliably quantitative parts are seasoned with qualitative estimates which may not be accurate but serve rather as interesting thoughts to ponder.

Yeah. Even if it's just for ten days, I like this idea.

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