When you edit, don't write

Last night, I adopted the intention of writing 450 words a day.
at first, I thought of writing 750—the length of a standard column, about 5 minutes of reading for the average person.
then I thought to myself, what would I like to receive, if it were me on the receiving end and some other slightly narcissistic writer on the other?

I'd tolerate about three minutes of daily reading from the same person, I figured.
so I decided to try for 450 words a day.

lucky you.

that doesn't mean that I actually expect any individual to read every blog post I write (there might be exceptions—I met a "stalker" recently ;) ).
hey, I don't even know what I'll be writing about, exactly.
it's more of an exercise, kind of like walking every day.
some things won't make it into the public arena.
I don't even know if what I'm writing right now will make it out of my Google Docs.
but that's the secondary concern.
the first is to write.

one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from someone who said:
get two hats.
label one "writer".
label the other "editor".
when you're writing, put on the writer's hat, and don't edit until you're done writing and have put on the editor's hat.

it's really impossible to write and edit at the same time, and produce prose worth reading.
cousin to that is the fact that unedited prose is also usually not worth reading.
(unless you enjoy reading and editing at the same time. but how can you absorb knowledge while being a grammar nazi?)
yes, I know Nazi is spelled with a capital N.
I just don't enjoy using the word, so I left it with a lower case N, hoping to evolve it into a generic descriptor for an obsessive jerk, and dissociate it a little from the proponents of a particular evil ideology.
see, this kind of explanation normally gets edited. I wonder whether I'll edit it out, after I'm done writing this?
one never can tell.
well, I decided to leave it in because

1. it's "just a blog" and
2. it's my blog.

I wonder whether I'm weird, sometimes. I think I am, but who can help their weirdness?
we were sharing "highs and lows", as is our custom in my small group at church.
my "high" was the fact that Microsoft has decided to support ODF natively in Office 2007.
that revs my engine, but I wondered whether anyone else even understood where I was coming from.


I just discovered my cousin Joshua's blog—Joshification: the process of becoming me.
I think that's one of the best blog titles I've ever read.
it reminds me of Dupree in You, Me & Dupree and his doctrine of youness.

what do psychiatrists say when they meet each other in the elevator?
"good morning! how am I today?"

a different but related question:
who have you been today?