lesser daemon: brent bailey's personal weblog

15

Feb

Addressing The Pause In Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

I was exactly a quarter of the way through my hundred days of writing last Saturday. The week since has been, bar none, the worst week of my entire life.

I am not comfortable going into specific detail right now, but a close family member is in the process of dying. I found this out last weekend, made a marathon drive down to see them on Monday, and have spent the week discovering just how hard it is to die with dignity in America.

I had assumed that "going into hospice" meant there was a place you could go where

3 min read

08

Feb

Between Curiosity and Despair

A friend asked me recently what I'd do if with my time if money and the endless obligations of attempting to maintain a middle-class lifestyle weren't a problem anymore. I had had a few drinks surprised myself by saying that I'd just like to spend time learning things. This is one of those good conversation starters that actually cuts to the core of somebody, and while I think at a surface level of thought I'd say something like "make the world a better place" or "make great art" or whatever, on some instinctual level the thing I like most in

4 min read

07

Feb

2/7 Link Roundup

It's Friday, my dudes. It has been an extremely long week in the world and for me, so here's some links I enjoyed this week.

Despair-Driven Development - Makes the argument for despair as a driver for positive change, since action gives you respite from it. My personal experience of despair in the workplace has not been that it makes me more productive, but I guess I have occasionally been motivated to do things out of sheer spite. Worth considering.

Dither Me This - Fun little web dithering tool. This is probably going on the long list of "cool graphics

2 min read

06

Feb

#100DaysOfWriting

In googling for a stock image to put at the top of today's post, I discovered there's already a #100DaysofWriting movement. Apparently it's quite popular!

The whole thing is based on showing up to the page with curiosity and gentleness. 'Showing up' can look like whatever you want. Five minutes of note scribbling? That counts. Research reading? That counts too, just as much as writing 1000 words. The point is regular connection without judgement.

These people think it's okay to "set reasonable expectations for themselves" and "not make a demented commitment like write something public-facing on their blog for 100 days straight". Absolutely disgusting. I would like to courteously invite anyone in this "gentle" 100 days of writing to meet me in single combat. While you were freewriting I was studying the blade (blogging).

06

Feb

What To Do When You Have Writer's Block

I am committed to writing on this blog every day for another ~77 days, and often I don't really have any good ideas about what to write. I usually think of writer's block in the context of, like, a tortured genius struggling to write their novel, not a Brooklyn dipshit who can't think of anything to post on his blog, but I guess it happens to all kinds of writers. Writer's block is tough for everyone, but I think I've cracked it: I've been developing a ten-step process for dealing with it when it happens, and I'm happy to be

2 min read