Writers are addicted to the particular kind of pain you feel when you’re at a loss for words, and to the relief that comes from finding them.
— Adam Mastroianni
Writing
Day One is doubling down on AI journaling. I’ve written thousands of entries in Day One, but despite the assurances of privacy, I’m not enabling any of these features. Not yet.
AI features in Gold are entirely optional. If you don’t enable AI features or engage them, they don’t touch your entries. When you do use them, your content is processed only in that moment and is never used to train AI models. The privacy principles Day One is known for haven’t changed.
These are the Wild West days of AI. Think carefully before you turn over even more of your most private thoughts.
If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say.
— Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
I’m late to the discovery of @annahavron’s wonderful Analog Office blog. Her Lumpers vs Splitters post on whether to keep one notebook for everything or many specialized notebooks is pure gold. Anna could write about staplers, and I would read it. Full disclosure: I am and forever will be a lumper.
The Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library. It’s just a few subway stops from our apartment, so I’m able to spend time here often. What an inspiring place for a reader or writer!
Savor the Moments
One of the things I love about keeping a journal is how a past entry can transport me so completely back in time to that moment. Here’s a passage from my journal on this day eight years ago:
I try to soak this in - the goldfinches perched on the feeders, fluttering and pestering one another for the best feeding spot, Puget Sound so blue and ruffled, distorted by the heat of the fire, the sight and smell of fresh cut grass, so green and healthy, the sounds of birds in every direction announcing their delight that spring has sprung. Ah yes.
My blog had its tenth birthday last July, and I forgot to celebrate: Why Blogs Matter
New Index Card Organizer for Notes
I’m trying out a new note-taking method. I’ve switched from Field Notes to this custom index card holder. I prefer taking notes on index cards, but I’m always misplacing them or can’t find one when I need it. This “book” solves that. I moved the ring to the top right side to accommodate my left-handedness, so it’s comfortable for writing. I take notes on books or writing ideas, and when I’m ready to process or write, I pull out the cards and arrange and rearrange them on my desk. I’ve always loved the tactile and visual creativity of note cards for deeper thinking and structure. And now I don’t have to scan through my notebook scribbles to find all the various notes I’ve taken on a project or a book. So far, so good!
From Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space? (New Yorker):
Two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies, and less than four per cent sell more than twenty thousand.
I knew that bestselling authors dominate book sales, but these are humbling statistics for anyone contemplating the Herculean effort of writing and publishing a first book.
The Curiosity of Micro.blog
How I fell into a trance with the Indy blog service, Micro.blog, is a curious story.
I received a renewal invoice from HostGator notifying me that the cost of my bi-annual web hosting service was going up 58%. Quick math informed me that I was paying too much for a personal blog. Surely there must be a less expensive alternative? That question led me down many paths, most leading me in circles.
Moving to Wordpress.com seemed like a good idea until I realized its plug-in-enabled service made even HostGator’s renewal price seem like a steal. I considered Medium and Substack, but their continual pestering readers to subscribe to their respective services didn't mesh with my belief in the value of an open internet. Many other competing web hosting services offered attractive short-term teaser rates but would require constant leapfrogging from service to service to remain affordable.
One service — Micro.blog — caught my attention briefly. $5 a month for hosting your blog with your own domain, a federated service that automated cross-posting to all sorts of other sites, and a blogging platform that allowed you to publish both long essays and short tweet-like updates to a timeline with no ads and no algorithms. No spam, no trolls. No fake news. Just old-fashioned blogging.