Writing Project

I have a new writing project. Part of me thinks I'm trying to start too much at once, but a bigger part of me knows that the holidays stretch out with no apparent ends or constraints, so I'd better find myself something to do. Hence the writing project.

I used to dream about writing novel; more accurately, of having written one. I still think it would be awesome and exciting to get a novel published, but I don't really dream about it any more. I'm not sure I actually want to do all that writing, which puts something of a stopper in the works. That still leaves lots of space for writing and even for writing a book: in fact it opens things up in some ways. Novels seem to be peculiarly* bound to book format (although there's some move to ebooks and pdfs, they're still pretty much books!)

So the new project is not a book. Right now it's a blog, because that's the easiest thing to set up, although I might transmogrify it later. It's not fiction either. I'm attempting to write about applied maths. This amuses me, because I'm not even studying applied maths - I'm doing pure maths and physics, and hoping to write about both and the interface between them.

(Image links to blog.)

It is yet to become clear whether or not I have any idea of what I'm doing, but one post in, it's fun. And that is largely what counts. If other people like it, great. If not, it's practice. Can I count it toward my 10 000 hours for both science and writing?


*Peculiar as in 'peculiar to novels' not as in 'I can't fathom it: how peculiar'.

Words

I've probably written a post titled 'Words' before; I'll probably write one again. It seems to be a recurring theme in my life. (Maybe that's why it sits so largely in the tag cloud down on the sidebar.) I have too many words: not absolutely too many, but too many to keep inside my head. They get tangled up and piled up and jumbled up. Suddenly, instead of streams of something like power, there's a threatening explosion. Perhaps it's a warning.

Not a warning that words are bad. Rather, these are meant to be shared. They're not really mine and holding onto them, even passively, is not helpful. I end up back here, not sure where I'm going and a little shamed that I've neglected the space for so long. Aware that I only have all the time in the world until university starts up again, but conscious that there's more to life than a number on a transcript. (Probably, I think!)

All that has far too many long sentences. Possibly too many flighty thoughts: words don't really explode. Frivolous figures of speech don't make the "I'm trying to blog again, but this might still be my newest entry in three months' time" post less awkward. They're not untrue either, though. They hint at something like the wonder behind the world - what C. S. Lewis calls the 'romantic' in Pilgrim's Regress. That, perhaps, is what I'm seeking.

So here's to getting back up, at risk of falling down again.