On Writing

I am meta.

met·a
/ˈmedə/
adjective US
(of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.
ORIGIN
from Greek meta ‘with, across, or after’.

In all of my pursuits I am more interested in the how than the what. I am intrigued by the possibilities - new ways of approaching a task, ways of making it more efficient and removing the barriers.

Ali Abdaal, the medical doctor and productivity YouTuber, referred to his auto-immune disease he calls “shiny new app syndrome.” As he described the signs and symptoms my hypochondria kicked in - it described me perfectly! A tendency to always be looking for the new tool, the new app, that will make studying easier, work faster, or writing better. He then discusses some forms of treatment or prevention.

But rather than think of it as an affliction, I’ve come to accept it as who I am, perhaps even a strength. While most people are spending all of there time trying to produce something great, I truly find it more interesting to spend my time playing with the ways to make something - rather than actually making it.

Take writing for instance. I have always struggled with writing.1 Book reports, essays, written exams, even blog posts have all been awful experiences for as long as I can remember, either coming out as forced, just-get-it-done prose, or not getting done at all2.

Despite this challenge - or perhaps because of it - I’ve also long been fascinated with the process of writing. In particular, out of curiosity I’ve downloaded and tried tons of apps that are meant to make the writing process more efficient or enjoyable3

iAWriter, the app I’m typing in now, is primarily a Markdown editor with a ‘focus’ function that highlights just the current paragraph or sentence. It now includes similar grammar functions as Hemingway or Grammarly (getting rid of fillers, clichés, and redundancies).

Yet, despite all of these productivity tools, I still struggle to get much writing done.

So now, at the end of NaNoWriMo,4 I’m making an effort to write more. This may show up as writing thoughts, writing summaries of research articles or books,5, writing about writing, or even writing about books about writing.

Hey, maybe I’ll even write about all the shiny new apps I’m using to write more!

  1. I briefly wrote about my painful experience with journaling in Mrs. Brown’s 3rd grade class here. ↩︎

  2. AP European History mid-term, I’m thinking of you. ↩︎

  3. Hemingway, iA Writer, OmmWriter, Atom, BBEdit, Grammarly, Manuscripts, Pages, OpenOffice, and Vellum are the handful installed on my iMac right now. ↩︎

  4. I’ve never wanted to write a novel anyway, but consistent blogging sounds nice. NaNoBlogMoLateOneMoLateO it is. ↩︎

  5. 5th grade book reports, you’re coming back to haunt me! ↩︎