A 30-minute rule for article writing

I have to admit that I really, really love to write. The mental state I achieve when I'm deep into an article is hard to describe beyond words and phrases like joy, bliss and the most intense concentration of thought.

I am reminded again of this wonderful letter written by Thomas Jefferson about ideas and the propagation of the same:

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not. As a member of the patent board for several years, while the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured. (emphasis mine)

That there is one of the most enthralling bits of prose I have ever read. Set aside for now, that he's debating the merits of intellectual property. He had my attention already with the phrase "fugitive fermentation of an individual brain". I know exactly what that means. I've seen jokes I've had in my mind disappear as I'm trying to write them down. And then the joke was gone. That is a fugitive fermentation if I ever saw one.

Jefferson's description of how ideas can so easily spread, with equal density everywhere, it's like he understood that the Universe is information. It is. I read to get new ideas. I write to spread ideas around. I use the thinking power to mashup ideas together to make new ones. I am, in my own small way, contributing to the growth of the universe. I am always richer for every idea that I share with others, never the poorer.

There is something else about writing. I don't worry about people stealing my ideas. I might have some concern that someone would copy my articles, but I know something about copying. There a certain magic to conjuring up an idea out of nothing, a supposedly empty mind, that cannot be attained by copying the work of others and claiming it to be my own. That state of mind I get when I create is exactly what I seek when I write, so I won't copy someone else's article and call it my own. There is simply no match for the feeling of seeing my own creation appear before me and then sharing it with you, dear reader.

In any case, I've been trying to get a handle on the amount of time required to write an article and I've decided to try an experiment. I'm going to limit first draft time to 30 minutes. The reason for this is that I know I can pound out a 1000-word first draft in about 30 minutes or less. That's purely with stream of consciousness writing, with just an outline in my head of the ideas I want to convey.

I can do this because I take advantage of a unique faculty of the mind: the capacity of the mind to wander. Concentrated focus is very difficult to attain without much training and practice. Even those who are very disciplined at using their minds will still find that there is a temptation to wander about. As I'm writing, my mind is wandering, foraging for content to put into this document here. It's like I'm walking a trail and every new sight brings about something else to ponder. I put that into every article.

I recall something I read years ago, an excerpt goes in. I think of an experience I had and that story goes in. People I know, People I like, great people I admire - all have found a place in my articles as subject matter. As long I think them to be relevant and on point, they go in. Mixing and matching, recalling and pouring in what I want, that's what writing is about to me.

I really mean it when I say "stream of consciousness, too. By holding to a 30 minute rule, I only bring to the article, the most salient and important points I want to say. I leave the rest behind, so that you are not burdened by details that may or may not be relevant. That time limit requires that I consider the urgency of the task, to keep it light and get to the point.

There are only so many hours in a day for you and me. I don't want to bore you with an excessively long article, and I don't want to labor too long on an article for the reason that I have a life outside of this screen. So I will see what I can do in 30 minutes each time I write an article. Then spend maybe 10-15 minutes editing and refining. There is so much to cover, so little time. This is it.