This Week's Main Course
Long time no see, I'm starting to write again.
To put it nicely, writing is called "writing", and as soon as this word is changed, it immediately feels like the things to be discussed later will be different, as if all the actions revolving around writing have become sacred. In fact, compared to writing, I used to prefer drawing. The main reason is that I told myself: a picture is worth a thousand words, so why write a bunch of words when something can be clearly explained with a single painting?
Oh my, how naive I was, completely unable to understand the power behind words. Later on, I got into university by drawing and continued to learn how to draw on the computer. I discovered that a large image could occupy several hundred megabytes of data space, while the entire Harry Potter series in pure text e-books was only a few megabytes, which further strengthened this belief.
I don't think drawing has to be more sophisticated than writing, I simply felt that I was better at drawing and not good at speaking, so I avoided what I wasn't good at.
Then, as I continued to draw, I started to feel something was off. Because every time I shared a drawing, I was asked to write a "work introduction". It wasn't until I went abroad to study for my master's degree that I realized the seriousness of the problem. Besides images, it turned out that there were people who needed to see the thoughts I expressed through words on the canvas.
Before going abroad to study, I was working at a television station and had spare time to start a public account to write something. But at that time, the main reasons for writing were twofold: one was that everyone was starting a public account, so there was an element of going with the flow; the other was a deep-rooted resistance to traditional media work from the depths of my soul. So, the motivation for me to start writing didn't come from myself. After resigning and going abroad to study, there was naturally no reason to continue writing. The public account was abandoned, and now when I look back at the backups on my computer, my eyes can't bear to look at them.
After returning from studying abroad, my free time was still divided among various work tasks, leaving very little time. In this era of information explosion, these moments were like a hot pot splashed with water.
From my own experience, I found that compared to video content, written content consumed more of my energy and time. Videos can be fast-forwarded, sped up, and you can decide whether to continue watching in less than a minute. But with words, one wrong word can completely change the meaning. So, how to handle these overwhelming sources of written information gradually became a top priority. Initially, my strategy was:
- Step 1: Limit input. The goal was to reduce the number of apps that consume content to no more than 3. For example, I unfollowed all public accounts on WeChat and moved the professional and work-related ones to WeChat Reading. WeChat is just a messaging app, purely for socializing.
- Step 2: Consolidate other interesting content. The solution I found was RSS. I subscribed and aggregated all the content I was interested in. As for the authors who publish high-quality content on specific platforms, let them be. As a side note, I guess not many post-2000s have heard of RSS, it's a way of subscribing and receiving information from the ancient era of the internet. It can be said to be the predecessor of "remember to follow" by family members. It's quite interesting. When I first started using computers, I knew nothing about these things. I must write an article later on about how to deal with information overload.
- Step 3: With these steps, the only apps left for consuming written content were WeChat, RSS feeds, and Kindle. As another side note, I'm not very optimistic about Kindle's potential for development in China recently, maybe it's just not a good fit.
By following these steps, I was able to see more high-quality written content, which naturally gave me more time for reflection and less energy spent on refreshing constantly changing algorithm recommendations. It's quite magical. Even though it's still subscribing, public accounts didn't give me the same sense of solidity. Maybe that's just the difference in product form. So, when I purely follow my own interests and come across interesting content, it naturally sparks many enlightening ideas. Over time (about a year), these ideas take root and sprout in my mind, creating wonderful connections. As far as I know, the inspiration and creativity that lead the world also gradually emerge through this process. Since that's the case, it's better to record them, just in case, right?
So now, as you can see, I obediently came back to writing.
Creative Fragments#
Recently, I've been designing character expressions and storyboards for an animation. There are still about 40 sketches left to draw, and I hope to finish them within a week.
In terms of time, the script has been modified back and forth for a long time, which has caused the progress of the preliminary work to be very slow. (Oh, by the way, I wrote the script too.) Half of this year has passed in the blink of an eye, so I need to hurry up.
Another difficulty in the creative process is that I find storyboarding and scriptwriting equally challenging. It's hard to score above 60 for a good story that hasn't been told well, but a bad story told well can score 80. Drawing storyboards is like reverse engineering through pictures. It's a pity that once something becomes a profession, there is no such thing as relaxation.
When writing the script, I found myself falling into a trap. In summary, once I think of something that I value a lot, I try to make every step perfect. It's hard for me to let myself go mentally. As a result, the progress of the whole thing becomes painfully slow.
The solution I found now is quite interesting. It's to break down the steps that need to be done, make a list, and do them one by one. If you have carefully thought through the list when making it, then once you finish it, you can completely ignore it. It's actually a kind of positive psychological induction.
If you have had similar problems and have better solutions, please let me know.
Weekly Highlights#
- Books
- This week, I'm reading "Get Things Done". It's the pioneer of GTD and a tool that helped me get out of the slow progress vortex. I'm currently putting it into practice.
- Videos
- I recommend this video by Ali Abdaal. It indirectly influenced me to build this website.
How To Build A Website in 2022
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Quote:
When you're writing, do not even think about what the world is gonna be interested in, just do what interests you, and get to the place where you’re writing about super niche topics. I mean if there’s any lesson of the internet, it is that you are not the only person interested in whatever it is that you’re interested in. Like we know that and the niches topics, honestly are the ones that are going to get you the best benefits of meeting cool people and having interesting things happen.
—— David Perell
Oh, by the way, the title also includes "Goodbye Shanxi". It means that I'm flying back to Kunming tomorrow, ending my three-month-long annual leave. It's quite miserable...
I hope the roads to the airport won't be closed this time. See you next week.