I’ve been playing with jQuery and CSS a bit in CodePen. Let me see if I can embed the Pen in this page.

See the Pen playing with CSS and jQuery by Jim Carroll (@pulamusic) on CodePen.

Yes, it works! Way cool. This would be a good way to blog about code, embedding a Pen in the page. I’ll have to think about this one. Coding is one of those things where I’m beginning to understand it, but I still struggle to find ways to make it relevant in my own work. This embedded Pen includes some jQuery/CSS trickery to either show something that is hidden or to change the formatting of a particular block of code. I’ll have to figure out, at some point, how this can be used in my pages.

Really, it is the portfolio site that needs to have some bells and whistles, paying particular attention to the index page. I could just add my Sun Ra modal or the Sun Ra quote generator to the page rather than linking to them on the music page. In fact, let me do something about that as soon as I’m done with this post.

This morning has been a bit difficult to start writing, but I’m hitting some flow now. The trick to freewriting, of course, is to just keep going. If I halt a little bit here and there, no problem. Otherwise, just keep going.

I’m beginning to understand jQuery enough to write my own code rather than just copy-and-paste from w3Schools.com or from the Bootstrap website. I’m the kind of person who needs to understand what I can do with code rather than simply learning in the abstract. I can hang with abstract, but I need to know why something is useful. jQuery is very cool, but unless I can keep learning the practical side of using it I will likely lose interest. Coding is only cool to me as long as I can use it to create. I just need to figure out what it is I want to create.

Freewriting should help me to sort out some of these issues. Freewriting is the part of the process where I begin to figure out what it is I am thinking about something. I start with nothing, and in the process of putting words down I range through some ideas, hopefully hitting on something juicy. Eventually, when I have enough text down, I can print it out and begin to edit. For now, though, I am going to remain committed to producing text through freewriting.

One thing to look forward to is the establishment of daily writing practice beyond just pumping out 500 words a day. I should continue with the 500 word goal, but also spend some time each day revising. This could be early morning stuff so that I’m done early.

Let me think on this one some more. Writing is one part of my professional skill set that brings me more anxiety than pleasure. I have a bad habit of writing as if someone is reading it while I write. I read a quote from Margaret Atwood yesterday where she said that she writes for nobody when she is working - she writes as if what she writes will never be read, even by her. The trick is to come back to it later, when it is nearly forgotten, and treat it as wood ready to be carved, so to speak. I like to whittle, so this is a nice metaphor. A new piece of wood needs to be carved up a bit before it begins to reveal what it will be. Writing is the same.