arup’s blog

I taught myself to touch type many years ago using the Dvorak keyboard. As with many things that I have learned they seem to reach a certain level and then stagnate. I’m more or less happy with my current typing speed but what bothers me is the accuracy. A recent online typing test showed that my average speed was 35 wpm. I took various tests using different online typing tutors and found it to be the same. I thought I’d take a month to work on my speed and accuracy. In the past I had used a Mac application called Master Key but this time opted for an online one called TypingWeb which I would be able to access from any computer via a browser. That way I could train on both my desktop and my laptop keyboard. I started doing the exercises and found that my speed was gradually increasing but then levelled off at 50 wpm after about 2 weeks and then started to get worse.

What I found was during the intermediate and advanced lessons the drills were giving me a sort of false positive result. Because I was actively working on my accuracy my wpm score improved too but when I went back to normal prose this did not continue and I realised that I needed go back and retrain but there was something that I couldn’t figure out. It took me till the end of the month to finally realise that I needed to slow down to a speed where I made no mistakes at all. 100% accuracy. 99% is just not good enough. But why not? If I make a mistake then I will continue to make that mistake and I cannot rely on my thought issuing the correct keystroke and this will result in an interrupted flow and having to use backspace and go back and correct mistakes. Interestingly, TypingWeb gives an accuracy adjusted wpm score. In the exercises you can make mistakes, get your score and then move on. But if you’re writing an email for example or a blog post then if you make a mistake you won’t just move on but will hit the backspace key, correct your mistake and then probably lose your momentum. So, have I simply wasted a month? Absolutely not. I have increased my typing speed already and have also increased my accuracy somewhat. But I have made this realisation which will set me up very well for the future.

My original plan was to simply have a “top-up” once every six months like a refresher course just like pilots have to do. But since realising that I need to eradicate all of my bad habits and reach 100% accuracy I will not stop having reached the end of the month but will now go back and do all of those exercises over again in the coming month and do them over and over until I have reached 100% accuracy in all of them before I move on to working on my speed. I think it’s far better to type at a slower speed but at 100% accuracy than to type at a faster speed but keep making mistakes. This sets one up better for increasing speed as then the accuracy is already at maximum.

One other good thing that happened during this month was that I bought myself a new aluminium Mac keyboard. My old one was from 2003 and had a problem with the left Command / Apple key. A lot of keys even though they worked had a stickiness to them that was noisy and also quite annoying. This one is a joy to use and feels more like typing on a laptop than a desktop. Much easier on the fingers and also much quieter. Here’s to faster and more accurate typing.

Novemeber has passed with a whirlwind new goal coming and going which was NaNoWriMo 2012. There is still a bit more to do in termms of actually finishing the story but then I’m not sure if I’ll continue to do any writing. It was an interesting exercise and even though I did quite enjoy it, it doesn’t really fit into my current set of goals. Should that be a problem? One thing that I learned from my month of writing was that often one has to abandon ones original ideas in favour of those that come up. For example, in my story the main character was to fake her identity but as the story progressed I realised that it wouldn’t really fit. The same with another idea which was that one of the characters would be the narrator of the story: this didn’t work either. Now that I have a set of goals should I just follow them even if they don’t really fit my story? Perhaps not. But I’ve invested so much into them already such as yoga or cycling that they can’t just be dropped or can they? The sunk costs fallacy is at play here. So what if I’ve invested time and resources into doing something and building it up? You often see this in the “making of” sections of DVDs. Lots of scenes are cut in the final edit, scenes that probably took a while to film and incurred costs but didn’t in fact help to tell the story. How many of the current goals are purused because they have become personal traditions? Traits of who I am or rather who I was and who I have been? Perhaps a new character should enter the tale while another is killed off? Music used to be a big part of my life and now it’s as though it was never there.

About half-way through the month now and it seems that Programming in Python has been at the top of my list. I’ve had work to do but have managed to put it aside in order to spend my time programming. I say programming, what I mean is doing programming exercises and watching video tutorials. The character of it has been rather like last month when there was one overarching goal that pushed all others to one side. I have certainly been enjoying it and realise that this urge may not last for very long and that while it is there I should follow it as much as I can. No career plans just studying for the sake of studying very much again like last month where I was writing simply to experience it rather than work on becoming a writer.

I’ve bought myself an Xbox 360 for Christmas. At first I wondered if I should because I know how addicted I can get when it comes to gaming but I have been missing it a great deal. After much deliberation I thought that I would just go into a shop and buy one even though I could probably get a decent deal on ebay with games and an extra controller. In the end a friend said that they wanted to sell their console and offered it to me for a very good price so I accepted. It’s been a good Christmas so far.

Cycling 200 kilometres per week

As I start December I wonder if I’m being a bit too ambitious even setting this goal for myself. It’s cold outside, I don’t need to ride as I’m only going into town twice a week which is around 80km. But I guess the intention is there and I do want to ride audax again next year.

Yoga

I have actually been doing some yoga, mainly because I’ve been feeling stiff and have noticed the need for it. But at the same time I have also noticed that even though I’m doing it and finding that it has been releasing tension that I also want to get it over with as soon as possible. It seems that as well as wanting to give up teaching I want to give up doing yoga as well. My body needs it, I can certainly feel that but I also want a break from it it seems, a complete break. I don’t think that can happen until I stop teaching completely. I’m a long way from that at the moment as I need to earn my keep from teaching. I’m not a position to simply quit even though I’d like to. I’m doing but I’m not enjoying it. Let’s just call it taking my medicine.

Friends

In the week leading up to the Christmas I had three parties / events to attend which is massive given that my social life is normally around the zero mark. Drank and ate a lot and also hung out with people. But as I haven’t been socialising much and tend to meet friends on an individual basis I did find the smalltalk to be difficult and generally pointless. But in spite of that I did find it quite enjoyable.

De-clutter

Not much in the way of Ebay or Freecycle this month. It’s not that I don’t want to de-clutter but it has just fallen down the priority list again.

Programming

So far this month, it’s only the 9th, I seem to be researching and studying Python. I don’t how or why I started on this path but here I am. I was studying javascript last month or perhaps the month before as last month, November was all about NaNoWriMo. Come to think of it, it was probably Codeacademy. I started on the Python tutorials but soon got bored of the tone of the tutor even though I was enjoying the exercises. I then moved over to the Google Python tutorials which are accompanied by YouTube videos and downloadable exercises and reading materials. In the past I’d always thought that Python was very similar to Ruby and because I had never really gotten on with Ruby I steered clear of it. But so far I’ve been enjoying it. Let’s see if I can last out the month before I get bored.

Reading a book a month

We’re into week three as it’s the 17th today and so far I haven’t read anything. I have been thinking about reading further into that Dickens novel that I started but have only thought about it. I’m not going to pressure myself but do have fond memories of reading the Millenium trilogy last Christmas. I think that I’ll have to either continue with that novel or start another one that actually grabs my attention.

Reading day

Today, Sunday the 9th of December was meant to be a Reading Day but as I don’t really have a book on the go or at least haven’t read it in a while, I haven’t done any reading today. It’s also a day off but that hasn’t really happened either. It’s been a sort of laid back work day i.e. with tasks and to do items. The laid back feel means that it has been very similar to any other work day except that I don’t feel guilty about doing non-work stuff. I suppose the main thing about having a day off is that you’re not under any obligation to do or not do any stuff. But I have done a lot of the items on my list because I don’t really know how to have a day off any more. But what about the reading? Yeah, well. I don’t know.

Regular cycle rides

It’s Christmas day! Yay, Merry Christmas. Great to have some time off and no sense of guilt to just spend the day hanging out and enjoying myself. It has been raining a lot today and I haven’t been on my bike for five days and probably won’t be on Boxing Day either. It’s been a sad month as far as cycling is concerned. But I’ll have a ride on Thursday just to break things up a little. And from now till the end of the month i.e. the end of the year, will I get a proper ride in? Somehow, I don’t think so. Shame.

Blogging

Not much really apart from these reports. I wrote about my experience of the NaNoWriMo month as a post but that was about it. I can’t see me carrying this over to next year.

So here I am six days into my very first novel with NaNoWriMo 2012. It’s exciting, it’s weird, it’s like nothing I’ve done before. I am writing but I’m also wondering why the hell I decided to do this.

Why did I decide to do this in the first place? I have known about NaNoWriMo for many years. I came across it when I used to be involved with Songfight back in 2005. Someone had mentioned it on the forums. It didn’t interest me in the least at the time but I did acknowledge it as a creative endeavour and that those who wrote songs might also like to write novels. I just didn’t think of myself as a writer in the sense of writing a book. I write my blog, I write my morning pages and I also write lengthy emails at times but I haven’t written an essay since my time at university or even a small publication such as a pamphlet. But the idea that people could spend a month devoted to novel writing has remained in the back of my mind. In the summer of this year a friend who had told me that they were writing a novel said that their efforts had ground to a halt and this saddened me a great deal. So much so that I was willing to take steps in order to get them to write again. I offered to write alongside them and write my own novel and that was when I remembered NaNoWriMo. We both signed up and watched the weeks and days counting down to the 1st of November. When the time came on the evening of the 31st I got an email from said friend saying that they didn’t quite fancy the idea of it and certainly didn’t want their work to be online. This infuriated me so much that I replied immediately and told that they couldn’t just back out like that especially when I had made such a committment. It hadn’t occurred to her that I was willing to write a novel even though it wasn’t my thing just to support her writing. She finally took this on board and told me that I didn’t need to do it either. This was true but having put my name down I felt that I would undermine myself if I backed out at such a late stage and felt that I ought to see it through. She eventually answered by saying that she wouldn’t follow the website but would do her own thing and we agreed to commit ourselves to 1500 words per day till the end of November. She doing it her way and me doing it on the site. I explained that the site is only a support system and the only thing submitted is an ongoing word count. But either way it was fine as the main thing or object of the exercise was to get her to write.

Now that we’re well into week two she is enjoying it very much and has been contacting me on a regular basis to inform me of her daily word counts. I’ve been enjoying it too. Far more than I thought I would. I still don’t feel like a writer as such but I have been writing. It’s the 11th of November today and so far I’ve written about 13,000 words. That’s actually not too bad for someone who says that they don’t write, aren’t really into writing or don’t really see themselves as a writer. I’ve found writing some of the scenes very moving and also found myself doing bits of research here and there to help me understand my characters. The feeling is like reading a good book. When I’m immersed in a novel the story, the characters and venues stay with me for the duration of the time spent reading it. So rather than writing a novel it feels more like I’m reading a novel that hasn’t been written. I could change what is happening now, what is going to happen and what has happened. It’s probably because I’m more used to reading a novel rather than writing one and that is my only frame of reference.

It’s now the 19th and I guess I haven’t been checking in as much as I thought I would but I have been writing. What I’ve been finding is that I have been enjoying it and that the urge can strike at any time. I can’t sort of create a window and then expect that I will write, it doesn’t work that way. Generally it’s been late at night when the day is done. I’m about to go to bed and then realise that I haven’t done any writing and out of a sense of guilt more than anything I decide to write for ten minutes or so. That ten minutes then changes to an hour and I’m up very late. I’ve also found that I much prefer to write on my laptop in bed rather than writing at my desktop. I think I prefer the keyboard on my laptop which perhaps might be a general issue to address as my desktop is my main work computer. Recently three keys on my other keyboard ceased to function so currently I have been using an old keyboard rather than get a new one. But that is a separate issue. I’ve cottoned onto this late night urge and have been going to bed a little earlier to see if I can catch the buzz and it’s been working. That’s not to say that I haven’t been writing at my desktop, it’s just the preferred place has been at my laptop in bed. In terms of my word count I am definitely behind the 1,667 daily target but I do have a story and it’s just a question of filling in the scenes.

Changing my bedtime schedule shows that I can’t force the urge. I know it’s there and I know it will appear but I can’t schedule it. It schedules me as it were. I have to set up my life around it. But that raises the question as to whether the urge will appear on regular basis. So far it seems to come in the late evening after the day is done but what’s to say that it won’t start to show up in the middle of day when I’m in the middle of something else? What if it starts to come every other day? What then? It’s the same with plots and characters. At the start of this process I made sketches of various scenes and characters and how they would interact but when I finally wrote them they began to change shape. I began to ask myself whether I ought to stick to the original plan that I had written down or merely use it as a guideline or prompt to get me started on a particular scene or passage. I was reluctant to do this at first but now I am very much allowing it to happen. Why not? I’m only exploring the process of writing itself rather than becoming a writer as it were. There is absolutely no career interest in this exercise. So we have two things: the urge to do something i.e. follow a particular course of action in this case writing and secondly how that course of action is undertaken. Both of these things are unpredictable but because we live in a scheduled calendared world we need some sort of pattern so that it can fit into a calendar. But the urge lives outside of the calendar. It could show up every day at two hour intervals and then disappear for a while. If that is the case and we want to allow that urge into our lives then we need to open up our calendar to invite such occurrences. But how many people can do that? We all have to work and pay the rent. This can be frustrating knowing that the urge exists and could show up at any time. Then when it does show up it can again be frustrating as it decides to reshape what we had planned. Therefore, all plans need to be provisional. We need to be ready to throw them out. It’s like inviting a great director onto your film set and allowing them to tear up your whole script. But the analogy ends there because the urge is part of you and by inviting it into your life and your work you need to allow it to take flight and create something. You went shopping and bought eggs but now you have the urge to just eat some toast. You need to allow for that just like allowing a child to play. Reschedule everything over and over again and put your draft plans to one side and then you will witness your own creativity at work. It’s frustrating and it can be infuriating but gradually you will learn to trust this new way of doing things which exists outside of the calendar. Writing is teaching me something about myself.

I’m now into the final week and I can feel the pressure building up. My word count is only just past the halfway mark so essentially I will need to double my output in terms of words if I’m going to reach the goal of 50,000 words by the end of November. My website work has died down so it’s very achievable but the main question is one of motivation: can I maintain it for a week? Looking at my stats page on the NaNoWriMo site I can see that I will need to write at least 3,500 words a day for the next few days in order to achieve the goal. It’s not impossible as there are enough hours in the day and I’m not busy on all of the days but can I keep it up? We shall see I suppose. The current state of my novel is a sort of patchwork quilt and I’m filling in blanks here and there. So in a sense it’s actually fairly easy to generate output as all that is required is a bridge from one part of the story to the next. The overall narrative is already in place it’s now about the fine details and the ending of course. Right now though I have time but I want to relax with a movie and a beer which isn’t really going to increase my word count. Hmmm.

It’s now the 30th of November and I have officially reached the 50,000 word target and have submitted what I have written so far. It was 54K in the end including some separators which I think count as words. I’m so totally amazed at the progress that I’ve made and the big push at the end. Wednesday 28th of November was my most productive day. I wrote from morning till evening with a longish break for dinner and a movie. And a long soak in the tub. I wrote over 7,00 words which took me up to 46,000 that day. Having spent days in the month writing nothing at all and days when I thought about quitting, this was a massive turnaround both in productivity and the ability to stay focused. It wasn’t a hard forced kind of focus either but a simple sense of enjoyment and a yearning to do more. There was the challenge too and a rush of confidence that the goal was within my reach and even if I don’t think of myself as a writer the challenge had been set and I wanted to meet it. It made me wonder why I wasn’t able to focus in this way with other projects. This has always been my dream to be able just work on something with that level of focus for the whole day. I put distractions to one side though and didn’t have my browser running to check emails, twitter or suddenly google a topic when it came to mind. With the browser open I can distract myself in other ways such as browsing goods on ebay or following links that come up on twitter. This just showed how much time I spend doing that. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to have a day like that and try as I might I’ve not managed to have it. This one just happened. I’m not sure that it will happen again and I wonder if it was because I was writing? I hope not because that would mean that in order to have more days like that I would have to write a lot or heaven forbid become a writer. That has never been my dream. I’ve sort of wanted to write a novel like most people and now I’ve done that, well almost, as there still a tiny bit more to write, but my main goal in life is to be able to focus and stay focused. But if writing is a vehicle to that goal then isn’t it a no brainer? I mean ideally you would like to be writing computer code rather than prose but does it matter? Isn’t it a case of sunk costs? You’ve put time and effort into learning programming but it has been going rather slowly and you haven’t really had days like that. I would like to have more days like that and if writing novels or literature in some form will give me that then would you not consider taking the plunge and give it a shot? I’m wondering if it’s just NaNoWriMo though. Once I know about the mechanics of writing and then pressure to get a job done would it be the same? If I could have days like that on a regular basis and get paid that would be unbelievable. I don’t even dare to dream that as it’s just too unrealistic and way too different to the path I’ve been treading. I think it would be nice to maintain the innocence that I feel with this new found activity. Rather than turn it into a career move it would be nice to keep it unspoilt and full of fun. I guess that also means that I have to keep going. If I stop writing then the feelings that I experience when I write will be gone too. It’s a new relationship, a new love perhaps. I do want to keep going, I want to finish this novel properly but a lot of things have gone on hold in order to make this happen and they now need to come off hold. How am I going to carry on? Well we’re back to the old balance of allowing things to happen and making things happen. If I allow myself to continue with this where will it lead? I will only find out if I follow that thread.