Writing for the sake of writing is not all that productive from my point of view. It is always best to have some goals in mind. That being said, I should be able to pump out text on command whether I have goals in mind or not. The trick is to relax and just write.

I know that sounds kind of goofy, but it makes sense to me. It’s kind of like the advice Jack Jarrett gave our composition class while at Berklee: a composer should be able to compose music on demand. The craft of writing, like the craft of musical composition, shouldn’t be dependent on “inspiration” in order to be productive. A real writer will write no matter what. In effect, this is what I am trying to accomplish with this freewriting blog: to be able to write substantively and voluminously on command.

So the idea is to write without stopping. I have a sense now as to what 500 words looks like, so I can glance at the word-count function less often. Even though I have set a goal of 350-500 words per post I want to be able to write without any external preoccupations. Word count should be about the last thing I look at.

That being said, there is some craft involved in being able to hit a particular length or word count. It’s not a trivial thing. Freewriting to a certain length is one thing, but being able to edit one’s writing to fit a specific length is ultimately important for getting things published. In the end, that’s the goal: publishing. Writing for the sake of writing is really not all that helpful if it isn’t done in service to becoming a better “published” writer.

Becoming a published writer ought to be the goal for all of my blogging. This current blog produces the raw material that can then be edited into more substantial posts for the pulamusic.com blog. Those posts, ultimately, can lead to better and more consistently produced writing.

On a tangent, I’ve just discovered that Atom does not have a print function for text. I have been using Atom to write, but now I’m not sure that’s the best way to do it. In order to edit and revise these posts I really need to print them out. I have always preferred to edit with a pencil rather than doing it all online. I wonder if I can open Markdown files in MS Word.

No I can’t use MS Word, but TextWrangler will allow me to print, albeit with fucked up margins. I think the best approach will be to write in MS Word and then copy and paste to a text editor for blog publication. I wonder if MS Word will allow me to save a file as Markdown.

Again, no I can’t. MS Word will allow me to save something as a plain text file, so maybe that’s how to do it. It’s all a bit confusing since I am straddling both the coding and writing worlds. MS Word is so much better for writing, especially where I will want to begin adding citations; I can write in MS Word using Endnote for the citations, removing the citation coding fields from the Word version and saving as plain text. Either that or copy and paste. I wonder if Word’s formatting will copy as well.