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💾 Archived View for park-city.club › ~invis › phlog › 031-viz-the-writer.txt captured on 2023-06-16 at 16:17:30.

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# Viz the Writer

Right, so, i seem to enjoy writing my articles a lot more than i do programming now, but i know i'm not totally consistent with articles.

I'm just on a roll right now. Did two articles this month. ...well, not even that much of a roll. My last two were honestly pretty low-effort because I'd already written major parts of them before.

I went into electrical engineering because I did enjoy low-level programming and I wanted to get a job doing cool science stuff. And I do enjoy that sort of programming. I didn't hate the research project where I had to essentially write an entire, complex device's firmware. But the constant carrot-on-a-stick nature of it all was really getting to me. I'm not sure if I even like programming, or that's just the most effective tool I have as a Computer Person who's Always Online.

I realize that I'm primarily motivated by being frustrated at things and wanting them to change. Like, a lot of my programming was "argh, Sonic R sucks, I wanna do that but better" or "argh, this Mac emulator sucks, I wanna do that but better". But I guess my GB game and my few game jam projects are a counterargument to that, since the point of those were always just "make something cool in a week" or "scratch that programming itch".

My almost investigate journalism stuff is kinda similar? To the doing things out of spite, that is. I tend to write a lot about how X is bad or how Y was good or why we really ought to look into Z. I like investigating things that feel wrong and seeing how we can make them better, using historical examples.

Both programming and writing are productive fields to do that in. Both programming and writing are interesting, because the biggest metric of success is "have you changed how people view this idea?", whether that's a text editor or an insightful article.

Programming creates the tools for others to create change, but writing creates the motivation to begin change.

I guess I'm also falling victim to the "hustle mindset", except instead of dedicating everything I do towards making money, I'm dedicating it towards getting myself out of this hellscape we call modern society.

One of the big things that I don't like about programming is that it's hard to make small things that work, but it's easy to write small things that work. You have to put so much effort into a program for it to go places, and even then you have to worry about bugs and security holes and maintenence and such.

Writing, when the words are down and the point is made, is done. The point is made, the point will never die. Words never become obsolete, just a part of history, something still very valuable. At least software wise, I can certainly study old UX approaches and technical tricks, but the software doesn't have much use anymore. It's old, it doesn't interface with anything, and it's probably been obsoleted by a newer version of itself or replaced by something else.

But do I want to write for a living? Maybe I could be a technical writer, be a mix of both worlds. I do that already, a little, with my website. But judging by how long I've been putting off some of the technical topics on my todolist, I'm not too sure. I do enjoy at work creating documentation and attempting to understand systems. Like, the reverse engineering stuff I've done, except higher quality. Trying to learn and wrap my head around things at my own pace with ample resources is enjoyable to me.

I dunno. I'm doing extremely bad in school right now (see article #32) so right now my biggest priority should just be to get literally any job better than a grocer or a fast food worker. So, given my skillset, I'd probably just end up doing programming for a living anyways. And, fine, whatever.

I think the biggest reasons I even got into programming is A: i had a lot of programming books around the house, B: it was something i could do for free on my computer and C: i spend so much dang time on here that i really want to make my *own* programs on the computer instead of always using someone else's. And also D: there is a certain amount of fun in trying to puzzle out a problem, how to solve and implement it, and seeing it work.

Writing scratches a lot of the same itches that programming does. I do research, I sort out in my head the best way to express an idea, I organize and plot and such. But instead of the result being a thing that solves a math problem, the result is bottled emotion that can arguably change someone's life. Or maybe it's just documentation on how to do a thing. That's still nice and helpful. I've discussed this on a Tweet thread re: Mega Drive Sonic hacking, but the world needs a lot more software documentation. Documentation empowers programmers.

But I can write about more than just computers. Obviously. I can write about my own feelings, I can write about hobbies like sewing or knitting or music production, I can write fanfiction, and fiction in general, so I can have characters to play around and explore complex emotions with. Writing to an extent feels a lot more satisfying than programming. Programming is great, it solves problems, but I don't think it's quite meant for me.

Only question is, how the heck do I get paid to write? Do I want to at all? Maybe programming is a hobby for me, sure, but is writing too? What do I even do for a living now? I don't know. This does feel a lot more achievable than being a librarian, though. I looked into that more and *eh*. Thanks but no thanks.