Robert Schonberger at thought home

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Why writing is hard?

After a great little coffee break reading Essays.

After an hour or so reading The Collected Essays of Leonard Michaels, I realised that I’d read something like 5 or 6 distinct essays. Al of them were actually fascinating, small vignettes into a thought on a biblical story or reminiscing about his father.

What struck me though is how short these stories were. Many of these essays carried over maybe 3 or 4 short printed 12 point font pages, and made their points, or lack of points, succinctly and quickly. It struck me that this is probably what hurt my enjoyment of writing as a kid.

I remember writing for school projects, and always bearing in the back of my mind the expected word count from the teacher – 500 words for this essay, 800 words for that story, Etcetera. And then always knowing the short cut and obsessing over the “Word Count” feature from WordPerfect or Microsoft Word. What pains they were. I felt like I was being measured on the quantity of what I was writing, rather than the quality. Often I’d find that I’d written everything I wanted to write about something, only to find I was a dreaded 200 words away from the needed length. Oh no! The horror! Or worse, when you’d write 500 words more and have to spend hours pretending I was Hemingway writing The Old Man and the Sea

All this comes about from the commercial practice of writing – where magazines and newspapers would push their authors to write a certain number of words, so that advertising can fit in allotted spots, and that paper print runs can fit in a certain number of pages, and the associated costs. Also, educators need to be able to estimate the amount of time marking and reading their students papers.

As for me though? well, when I’m done nowadays, I’ll just stop writing.
Starting a 1 week project

A story 1 week in the making

I’m going to start an investigative story today. It’s going to be fun. A lot of the time people have a “lets do 1 thing a day” but this is going to be… better.

See you in a week. I think it will be interesting for anyone in tech.
Moments.

September 30, Brooklyn

a little over a week ago I was flying from Singapore to Sydney; It was an overnight flight, leaving singapore at the uncivilized time of 2am. You know you’re on a late flight when the shopkeepers are shutting shop as you arrive to the airport.

I managed to get a little bit of sleep—after all, it was an 8 hour flight. I was jolted awake at some point, and when I woke, for some unknown reason, I decided to open the blind. That moment, that minute, was when the plane was about to cross over to the mainland of Australia. I could see rivers, peninsulas, beautiful nighttime vistas lit by the moonlight, and 3 beachside shacks, with a little light. From kilometres up. In the distance, a small town.

I got a little bored in Sydney, so I figured out that I had seen a little set of cabins in remote western australia, called Nature’s Hideaway at Middle Lagoon . How do I know? the flight path is public domain. They advertise themselves as a secluded getaway for families, 2 hours north of the already remote town of Broome.

Will I visit? who knows. I just liked the fact that I was there for such a funny moment. It’s starred, as a destination in Western Australia now.

Blog Posts

21 Jun 2015 » Why writing is hard? – View Comments
02 Oct 2014 » Starting a 1 week project – View Comments
30 Sep 2014 » Moments. – View Comments
30 Sep 2014 » In the groove! – View Comments
18 Sep 2014 » You can get Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, now. – View Comments
18 Sep 2014 » The most interesting part of any story you hear. – View Comments
06 Oct 2013 » The hardest part of anything. – View Comments
09 Aug 2013 » Perfect lack of competition – View Comments
06 Aug 2013 » A thought about airports. – View Comments
23 May 2013 » Review of the Master Builder at the BAM. – View Comments
22 Apr 2013 » Taxi Drivers, why do they drive like they do? – View Comments
10 Dec 2012 » Spam, it's not all bad. – View Comments
08 Dec 2012 » A Brave new World. – View Comments
18 Nov 2012 » Outback Steakhouse? – View Comments
24 Aug 2012 » Why is Abortion such a hot topic in the USA? – View Comments
30 Jul 2012 » What gallery is relevant? – View Comments
29 Jul 2012 » The Less is More approach, in coding. On a small scale – View Comments
26 Jul 2012 » Uncle Vanya, a Sydney Theatre Company production, in New York! – View Comments
12 Feb 2012 » On Design. Familiar Operation, Familiar Failure. – View Comments
06 Feb 2012 » Dealing without. – View Comments
04 Feb 2012 » Building Bridges, or Apples and Oranges. – View Comments
02 Feb 2012 » Moneyball—Why only for sport? – View Comments
01 Feb 2012 » The new Facebook IPO – View Comments
16 Oct 2011 » Hiking in Utah, the real formative memories. – View Comments
02 Apr 2011 » Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo - A broadway review. – View Comments
19 Jan 2011 » Time Stands Still — A broadway review. – View Comments
27 Nov 2010 » A Rose for Milton? – View Comments
12 Oct 2010 » Discovering the directory again. – View Comments
05 Mar 2010 » Review of The Belvoir St Theatres production of That Face (from the Royal Court) – View Comments
28 Nov 2009 » One of those little things I see, and I don't want to forget. – View Comments
25 Nov 2009 » A short story adaptation – View Comments
22 Nov 2009 » Bad ideas for the internet, number 1. – View Comments
17 Nov 2009 » Writing a quick Go package, as an experience – View Comments
04 Nov 2009 » Happy Days by Sam Beckett At the Belvoir – View Comments
26 Oct 2009 » The hardest part of writing is … – View Comments
16 Oct 2009 » God of Carnage, the STC production – View Comments
27 Sep 2009 » Super Size Me, The real experimental protocol – View Comments
31 Aug 2009 » Gethsemane, The Belvoir upstairs production – View Comments
26 Aug 2009 » The Lonesome West, at the Belvoir. – View Comments
24 Aug 2009 » Saturns Return, my review from the 2009 Production – View Comments
19 Aug 2009 » Follower counts, and do they matter? – View Comments
14 Jul 2009 » Comment Fragmentation, the result of content aggregation – View Comments
13 Jul 2009 » Review of 'The Promise' at Belvoir St Theater. – View Comments
12 Jul 2009 » My quick review and overview of PubSubHubBub – View Comments
05 Jul 2009 » The Triumph of Software over everything in consumer computing.. – View Comments
26 Jun 2009 » Back at home in Oz – View Comments
24 Jun 2009 » August, Osage County At the Music Box in New York – View Comments
21 May 2009 » When the Rain Stops Falling At the Drama Theatre. – View Comments
19 May 2009 » Erlang preview, And what makes content creation so hard? – View Comments
17 May 2009 » Half Marathon Afterglow. – View Comments
16 May 2009 » Good books - whats the line? – View Comments
15 May 2009 » Whats the answer? – View Comments
14 May 2009 » Back to business – View Comments
28 Apr 2009 » Kafkas Metamorphosis at the Sydney Theatre (All the way from Iceland?) – View Comments
20 Apr 2009 » The wonderful world of Dissocia – View Comments
19 Apr 2009 » Kafkas Monkey - a real letter to the academy. – View Comments
04 Apr 2009 » Get Smart, Whats wrong with it? – View Comments
02 Apr 2009 » Public transport rant of the day. – View Comments
31 Mar 2009 » Ladybird, the 1st BSharp play in 2009 – View Comments
29 Mar 2009 » The Man From Mukinupin, A Belvoir Production. – View Comments
28 Mar 2009 » A Reservoir sampling server for erlang, written as a gen_server. – View Comments
26 Mar 2009 » Travesties @ The Drama Theatre – View Comments
24 Mar 2009 » Concussion—The Wharf Theatre. – View Comments
09 Mar 2009 » What do Facebook Search results do? – View Comments
07 Mar 2009 » Dear Discount Fruit and Vegetable Shop. – View Comments
03 Mar 2009 » Downtime sucks! – View Comments
27 Feb 2009 » Junk Mail Targeting—How much is there. – View Comments
23 Feb 2009 » Creative Commons for Australian Beginners – View Comments
19 Feb 2009 » Tuesdays with Morrie @ The Ensemble Theatre. – View Comments
15 Feb 2009 » The Holiday @ The Griffin Theatre. – View Comments
14 Feb 2009 » Hooray for Valentines day. – View Comments
12 Feb 2009 » The Removalists at the Wharf Theatre. – View Comments
11 Feb 2009 » Defining the 'Personal Pub Crawl' – View Comments
10 Feb 2009 » Double Checked Locking: keep it volatile & above 1.5 – View Comments
09 Feb 2009 » Trying something new. – View Comments
09 Feb 2009 » Baghdad Wedding @ Belvoir: A quick review. – View Comments