Title: Methods of Life Hacking
Panelists: David Erik Nelson, Jim C. Hines, Dave Crampton
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 3:00 PM
This was one of the panels that I was really excited for. I've been looking into life and mind hacking to try to help myself, so I figured this would help me out. I wasn't disappointed!
We started with finding time to write. Everyone gets the same 24-hours in a single day, and how those hours are used is up to the person in question. It's always a choice, and you need to take what you can get! Once the writing time has been chosen, I need to stick to it. It needs to be routine - so that my brain builds "Time to Write!" pathways and make it easier to write in the future. Part of this is that I should avoid doing anything but writing during it - no checking email or various websites, no leaving my chair, just writing for an hour or so. One warning about the routine is that it's hard to break away from that if you ever have to.
One suggestion I really liked from this panel was about writing itself: The suggestion was to write long hand. It's slower, but that's often a good thing - it forces you to think about what you're putting on the paper - rather than just blurting out everything that comes to mind. Besides, in a word processor what's typed looks like a book, which could cause anxiety about it being absolutely perfect. Also suggested were writing on index cards or legal pads - because that makes it more difficult to ramble or lose track of the story.
My favorite advice was to "Write crap for ten minutes every morning" - that way all your bad writing is out of the way, so you can work on more serious things. I don't think I would actually be able to do this one, but it would certainly be nice!
The overarching theme was to try new things, different things - and find what works for each you. And to remember that things that are attempted might now work, and so as a writer I/we need to be flexible and able to try something else.
One book that was brought up numerous times was Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer. I hope to get a copy of it soon, because it seems like a very nice resource.
Penguicon 2010 Posts
Character Driven Storytelling
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[[Methods of Life Hacking]]
Publicity 101
Post-Scarcity Futures
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