site banner
ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  18d ago (text post)   228 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for December 3, 2024

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Saturday was November 30th, the last day of NaNoWriMo. I made it, 50k words in the bank.

I am both very surprised and quite proud I didn't give up partway through: I've become a far more disciplined person than I used to be. While it was a busy month, I was pleased to find that it wasn't a gruelling chore throughout: while there absolutely were days when it felt like pulling teeth, even quite late in the game there were plenty of passages which I found quite fun to write.

Sunday was a well-earned Sabbath day. As I mentioned, I realised quite early on that the story I'd envisioned would not fit inside 50,000 words, and right now I'm feeling like a first draft will be as long as 80k, or even 90. My plan is to write at least 1,000 words a day during the week and take the weekends off (unless inspiration strikes). At that rate I should have a first draft by the middle of January, or the end of the month at the latest.

I've become a far more disciplined person than I used to be.

Care to elaborate? I'd love to hear more about this process.

I'm afraid I can't say much that would be of use to a third party. I don't really know how I became more disciplined, I just know that I did.

But I think a big component was setting myself long-term goals which I'd publicly pre-committed to by setting them for myself as part of a group. During Covid I got into running, and a couple I know suggested that the three of us sign up for a marathon. I decided to do it. I think the fact that it was a group activity made a big difference: if I'd just privately signed up to do it myself I wouldn't have lost face if I'd decided to back out after a few weeks of training.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats