At the end of last year, I completed a rather successful experiment in using

Sunday, January 1, 2012

End of an Era (2011 and 750 words recap)

Well, one year is over and another one has begun, and so, there are new experiments on the horizon! 2011 was a year of relative inactivity on this blog. Like so many others, I was affected by this volatile economy. I lost my job to budget and program cuts. I relocated. I reunited with friends and loved ones. It wasn't all bad, but it certainly wasn't easy. In between all of this upheaval, I still thought about chronicling all of it, and this blog was in the back of my mind. I made a lot of excuses about writing, without really seeing the full benefit of keeping up with my experiments.

I can happily say that my last experiment with 750 words had some extremely positive results. Something magical happens after a few weeks, when you run out of things to say. You stop thinking too hard about what to write, and the process becomes far more organic. It becomes easier to find your own voice, instead of playing ego games, trying to sound erudite or focused. In short, you stop deceiving yourself, and you start writing in your own particular voice. This is a good thing, and that is an understatement. Beyond that, 750 words had some pros and cons. I'm going to break everything down, for anyone who is considering using this service.

First, the personal pros and cons of using 750 words:

Pros

• After one month of writing, my writing became more fluid and honest. Writing became second nature, instead of feeling forced.
  
• The idea that "life gets in the way" of the things we want to do became a thing of the past. I missed a total of four days of writing. I missed two of those because I tried to start writing too late, and I was thwarted by the midnight cutoff. I missed two more days as a result of illness. At first, I beat myself up and felt a bit guilty about missing those days, but then I made some small adjustments in time-management. Completing my entries for the rest of the month was a piece of cake.
  
• At the end of the month, I want to keep writing. It has had some unforeseen benefits. I stopped avoiding the job-hunt, and I instantly learned that my new/current job is making me miserable. I'm likely to give myself a bit more credit, and start looking for a more appropriate job much earlier than I would have, had I not written about work more often than any other subject.

Cons

• So, I can't really call this a con, because I am in favor of introspection, but I can see how it might make writing difficult for some people. Writing without a prompt can make you feel like you are an incredibly boring person. Some days, you might feel as if you have nothing worth saying. Because the only feedback comes from statistics, I can see how some people might want to give up when they start to touch upon uncomfortable subjects. If you can get past feeling over-exposed, the benefits are worth the struggle.

Now, there are some pros and cons, concerning the website, itself:

Pros

• For now, the site is completely free to use.
  
• It is simple and clean, and a complete joy to look at. It doesn't distract from writing.
  
• The integrated word count is lovely. As soon as you hit 750 words (approximately 3 pages), the site lets you know, courtesy of an obvious and congratulatory green bar at the top right of your journal page. It's like getting instant permission to stop writing on days when writing doesn't come easy, but you always have the option of continuing to write.
  
• The site awards badges for certain behaviors. You can earn badges for writing consistently for a set number of days, writing without distractions, hitting 750 words in 20 minutes for several days in a row, etc. Like XBOX 360's Achievements or PlayStation Network's Trophy system, a seemingly silly badge can offer the extrinsic motivation that you aren't getting from a public blog or social networking site. If you like earning badges, those badges might just keep you in the habit of writing.
  
• Metadata, metadata, metadata. You can record just about anything in your posts using metadata tags. (I started tracking the following: sleep, sleep quality, food, coffee, focus, energy, happiness, book, movie, tv show, video game, and music.) If you enter a number immediately after the metadata tag, your results are viewable on a nifty graph. You can even compare two metadata items, if, let's say, you want to see how your sleep habits are affecting your energy level or mood. This feature is a definitely plus, and it is only limited by your imagination.
  
• If you want to back up your writing, you have the option of exporting each month's journal as a .txt file. You can also hit the printer icon next to each entry, if you prefer having a paper copy right from the get-go.

Cons

• The statistics are not as useful as I had hoped they would be. At first, I was really excited to see each day's assessment of my mood, my primary concerns, the sensory information in my writing, etc. Unfortunately, the system is not perfect. For instance, there were several days when I wrote things that were very optimistic, and yet my statistics listed my overall mood as "upset" and "negative." Also, even though I spent most of the month writing about work and success, I found that even using the words "god," "ye gods," or "hell" resulted in a reading that I was most concerned about religion, rather than the topic I was actually contemplating. The overall results under the Eternity tab are much more accurate, because the sample of information is larger, but I'm still skeptical of accuracy. I hope that this feature will continue to see improvements, but for now, it is far inferior to metadata. At least the site creator acknowledges its imperfection, in the FAQ. These emotional statistics are meant to be "taken with a grain of salt."
  
• Security may still be a concern. Even though the entries are automatically made private, I didn't feel as inclined to list personal information like names, and I found that I couldn't be wholly honest as I was writing. The statistics page works on the foundation of information-gathering, which is not completely accurate, and yet, there is no real, clear security policy listed on the site. It's just a friendly note from the site creator, stating that none of the information gathered will pose a security risk to the users. There are no links to any kind of legal privacy statement...which make me nervous. You can lock your entries using a password, and the lock kicks in automatically after you have been away from your computer for too long, but that only affects your computer.
  
• Again, along the lines of security, once you have written your words for the day, and the clock hits midnight, it is impossible to go back to previous entries. You can certainly read them, but you can't edit them. In some ways, this helps to keep you honest about yourself and your writing, but it could be problematic. In particular, it is currently impossible to delete individual entries without deleting your entire journal. I suppose that you could delete and reboot your journal each month, but I'd guess that you'd probably have to create another gmail account each time you did so. I could be wrong. In any case, it seems like it would be more trouble than it is worth...and besides, you would lose all of those badges every month.

In conclusion, I think that 750 words is a great tool for someone who is trying to jumpstart a writing habit. I will continue to use the site for the next couple of months, until that habit becomes a more permanent one, but I will likely look for other options, as well. I currently have MacJournal on the back burner, but I hope to find a journaling tool that allows me to track metadata and word count as beautifully as 750 words does, without the security concerns.

Well, I am off to work for the evening, but when I get home, it is time for a new experiment!

Cheers!

Experiment #3: 750 Words (Days 17-23)

Although I still need to work on updating this blog more frequently, I have made a lot of progress with my current experiment. As a reminder, I have been using the site 750 words as an online journal since the beginning of December. I'm not quite prepared to break down all of the pros and cons of the site, though I am in the process of writing my evaluation for the month. I can say that the journaling process has offered a few important insights.

I began using 750 words in the midst of a long unemployment--without benefits, for the record--and I started working midway through the month, about two weeks after I began keeping my journal. I think that I have spent more time writing about work than about any other topic. The writing process itself has allowed me to vent and to deal with the fallout of unemployment without burdening anyone else. In addition, the statistics page has provided me with some valuable insights. Though it is still a bit flawed, I have gained additional information about my emotional states, preferences, preoccupations, and writing style. In fact, I was able to decide on my next experiment as a result of writing in this journal. Even though I originally had other ideas, I kept coming back to one particular experiment, so I decided to run with it. Free-writing has also given me the opportunity to deal with personal concerns as they arise. In a few short weeks, I have already realized my dissatisfaction with my work life, and the need to move forward with career plans. In all likelihood, it would have taken me a lot longer to reach this point if I had not had an outlet for all of my self-doubt and questioning.

According to my daily statistics pages, I have gotten considerably more negative as the month wore on, and as my work situation changed. I'm really looking forward to taking a deeper look at my results for the entire month. I anticipate some surprises.

Experiment #3: 750 Words (Days 6-16)

Yeesh. It's hard to believe that I haven't updated this blog in ten days. So much for good intentions. No, not really. I'm lying. Actually, it's a pretty easy thing to believe, given my previous track record. Despite my lack of updates here, I have been doing a lot more writing, thanks to 750 words. I have missed four days since I began, two of which were the result of my treating any hour past midnight as part of the previous day. Hey, it doesn't count unless I go to sleep, alright! That means that sometimes, my day ends at 4:30 AM, and the next day begins at 2 PM. See, it would be easy to pass this off as another excuse, but in truth, it's another statistic to consider. What does this one tell me? Well, for starters, I probably need to work on a more consistent schedule. My current work situation makes this difficult, even on the best days, but hey...I'm working now...so there is that. Then, there were the two days that I spent curled up in a ball, under a pile of blankets, nursing some kind of mini-flu. In fact, I avoided pretty much everything that didn't look like a bed, those days. I didn't really want to deal with being sick or, you know, alive. I certainly didn't want to write about it.

That's the point. The statistics available through 750 words serve as both blessings and curses. They make opportunities for awareness about bad habits, self-editing, and negativity as well as all of the fluffy-kitten moments that life has to offer. There is something you should know about me--especially because it will likely come into play during next month's experiment. I HATE complaining. In the context of this experiment on journaling, I feel a certain twinge every time I have the urge to vent. I tend to resist the urge, and instead of relying on emotion, I gravitate toward analysis, or I avoid complaining altogether. In fact, I had to force myself to write the first paragraph of this post.

The truth is that it doesn't really matter what I write in my personal journal, as long as I manage to hit my word count each day. I could type "exquisite corpses," copy the works of Edgar Allan Poe, or write the great American novel...or I could write about the minutia of everyday life, and I would still manage to expose myself in doing so. Sometimes, I stumble on great ideas, and sometimes, I get stuck on small annoyances. Whether the words end up on the screen or in my head, the act of writing forces me to pay more attention. ...and with no one to impress, seduce, or convince but myself, paying more attention can be difficult.

Getting past the discomfort of heightened awareness is the key to progress. Journaling provides a way to express grand ideas and recount important memories, of course, but it also serves as a receptacle for the word-vomit that invades everyday conversation. The whining, the complaints, the irrational fears, the egoism, the finger-pointing, and all of the other self-indulgent crap has a place to go: on the page. When I stop censoring myself there, I have the opportunity to use those things to aid personal growth instead of avoiding it.

Obviously, my stats for the last ten days have been more negative, but I am interested to see how things play out, by the end of the month. So far, my overall mindset reads as "Introvert/Negative/Certain/Feeling." See below for the pretty version:

Statistics: Day 16

...and compare those to Day 1

Experiment #3: 750 Words (Days 3-5)

Well, I am nearly a week into my experiment with using 750 words, and I have finally hit the "uncomfortable stage." You see, one of the benefits of stream-of-consciousness journaling is that it is meant to be unfiltered. You can whine. You can curse. You can say all of those nasty things about yourself and about others that you'd never bother to say in public, because then, it becomes both risky and burdensome. On one hand, getting this garbage out onto paper--or in this case, on the internet--gets it out of your system, and onto a place that is both impartial and DOESN'T CARE. It won't chastise you for your foolishness, but it won't play to your ego and try to flatter you into feeling better, either. For me, what I'm left with is a certain sense of discomfort with myself.

It is around this time that I start editing my writing, if only in bits and pieces. I become more critical of the words that I choose, trying to make myself sound more intelligent for the benefit of an audience that doesn't exist. I pick apart sentence structure and punctuation. I start questioning the banality of the topics I choose to explore. Ha. I imagine that poets and writers do this kind of self-aggrandizement and subsequent self-deprecation all of the time. I wonder if this is why I never finished writing enough songs to constitute an album, or why I have had difficulty finishing any of my prior blog experiments. ...and then I laugh at my own romanticizing of this very common result of any awareness practice.

Eventually, with enough hard work and persistence, I would like to believe that we can take these moments of apparent weakness for what they really are. ...part of the creative process itself, perhaps? This is why exercise programs fail, why people never fulfill lofty creative goals, and why the pursuit of happiness can easily turn into settling for mediocre satisfaction with life. There is nothing inherently wrong in being happy right where you are, doing exactly what you are doing. There is probably something wrong if you wish you could do great things, and are too afraid to risk being uncomfortable, from time to time.

For what it's worth, there are links to the statistics for my last three entries at the end of this post. I have definitely gotten more negative, since Day 1. I started tracking metadata, which is not available on my share pages, but a few interesting things have already popped up. My happiness seems to be directly related to the amount and quality of sleep I had the night before each post. It is too early to make any conclusions about the optimal amount of sleep, for me, but I hope to gain further insight by the end of the month.

Cheers!

750 words: Day 3
750 words: Day 4
750 words: Day 5

Experiment #3: 750 Words (Day 2)

This morning, after some much-needed coffee, I hopped online and visited 750 words for my second day of writing. Now, I know that this is supposed to be a stream-of-consciousness style of journaling, and my entry today certainly followed that path. I started writing about my morning, and quickly took a deep dive into a tangent on wordplay and language. I really enjoyed the process, and I found myself asking a lot of questions that I usually ignore, in daily routine. That's the point. Each journal page ends with the following: "750 words -- Private, unfiltered, spontaneous, daily."

The stats are still my favorite sections, so I spent a bit of time exploring them today. What I found was a veritable treasure trove of numbers, all done up in party dresses (graphs of all kinds and colors). For example, I was talking to my boyfriend, Michael, while I was typing, and I could see how my writing slowed down when I started to pay attention to him, and how long it took me to get back up to my usual writing speed. Some of the statistics won't be as useful or as interesting until I have been able to collect them over time, but so far, I write about twice as fast as the rest of the participants, and I use far fewer "ah's" and "um's" than the majority of them. Here, take a look! Here are my stats for the last two days. Go ahead, be their prom dates.

Day 1; Friday, December 02, 2011
Day 2; Saturday, December 03, 2011

Oooooh, pretty.

Here's the thing, though: this isn't quite enough to satisfy my curiosity, so I decided to run this experiment using a second journal as well, for comparison. The faux journal of Edgar Allan Poe, under the pseudonym of Annabel Lee. The timing doesn't matter as much; I'm only curious to see how his personality developed over the course of his writing career. The timing doesn't really matter, as long as I add each poem, story, or article in the order in which they were originally penned. After all, it would be pretty pointless to compare his mindset with that of the general population in 2011...but it might be fun to check it out anyway, after I have a fair amount of his works entered into the journal. I assure you, it's legal, as all of his works published before 1923 are considered public domain, and are easily found through legal avenues on the internet.

The only downside is that I am meticulously adding each of his works, line for line, and no one will ever be able to read them. As of now, 750 words allows you to share your statistics with others, but not your actual entries. I understand that this is a way to encourage unfiltered writing, and to allay common fears about online security; I just wish that I had the option to share everything. Oh, also, once the clock ticks down and rolls over to the next day, you no longer have the opportunity to edit the previous day's entry. This is another way to keep people honest/unfiltered, but if I miss something while working on Poe's entries, it could potentially skew his results. Over time, though, these errors would become less important, and an overall picture of his character would probably remain the same.

The Poe project will be MUCH longer, but I'm willing to do the work for the sake of curiosity alone. For now, enjoy the stats from his first two poems, and feel free to email me at poe.poster@gmail.com if you'd like updates on his progress beyond the end of December.

Experiment #3: 750 Words (Day 1)

As usual, I have been thinking a lot lately, about what it means to "get things done." This kind of thinking tends to lead me to list-making, excitement over the possibilities available to me, and indecision. After a few conversations with friends, I have been able to draw the following conclusions:

1) The number one cause of failure to "get things done" is not doing them.
2) Most people who fail to get things done fail because they confuse thoughts and emotions.
3) When people confuse thoughts and emotions, or when they get too mired down in either one, a substantial amount of time and energy is spent on not doing the things that they set out to do in the first place.
4) Time is a problem. Some of us work better with deadlines; others are crippled by them.
5) None of these things are really problems; they just require a bit of retraining.

Now, of course I am oversimplifying things, but there is a point to all of this. Time is flexible, based on our perception. When we enjoy doing something, it feels like a never-ending, magical time filled with unicorns and rainbows and free candy. When we don't enjoy something, it feels like ten years spent in a prison camp, and we look back on magical times as temporary but lovely flashes in the pan. I'm not even referring to a battle between Exotic Travel Adventure and Garbage Picking; we feel these exaggerated opposites in a mundane fight like Watching A Movie vs. Doing the Dishes, too. [By the way, it also holds true that we will work ourselves to death and call it "fun" in the name of some preconceived notion of success.] In other words, we are often profoundly stupid in our pursuit of happiness.

I'm not really sure what the cure is, but I do know that setting the bar a bit higher for one's own frustration tolerance and honest introspection must have something to do with it. Know thyself...blah blah blah. In the spirit of self-awareness, I signed up for 750 words, a journaling site with a twist. The site design is clean and simple. Sign up and sign in via Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo!, or OpenID, and you'll see your journal page for the day, as well as a monthly archive. Days on which you fulfill the 750-word quota are marked as completed. Drop-down menus reveal a number of interesting options, my favorite of which is "Stats." Click on it, and you will see a mind-boggling analysis of your writing: a graph of words per minute, ratings--my first entry was PG-13, emotional content, mindset, time orientation, primary sense explored, frequently used words, etc. You have options to share--or not--these stats in part or whole. OH HELLS YES...I just found out that I can track metadata, too. I'll have to use this to add in sleep hours and quality, and compare it to mood. The possibilities are endless.

Basically, this is stream-of-conscious journaling for nerds, and how. I'll be checking in daily with tips, tricks, ideas, and occasional stats. If you're interested in getting in on this experiment, head over to 750 words and start writing!