Bruce Blog

get the words out of my brain

I've been journaling a lot. I've also started a blog, this one! You're reading it right now. Hello! I fully acknowledge this post is a bit meta and generally I dont like that stuff. But this is my swamp! and I'll write what i want.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.

My writing outlets

When journaling I sometimes struggle to get the thoughts out fast enough to keep up with my brain. I use whatever method i can before they evaporate anyway. I have 7 different avenues for capturing my thoughts and making them more concrete.

  1. mini-composition, red G2
  2. Bookaroo A6, metal black G2
  3. Fullsize notebook, pencil
  4. 8x11 bound sketchbook, any pen/pencil/marker
  5. eReader notes app, Boox Note Air 2 with a Staedtler Noris Jumbo stylus
  6. Desktop typing, Keychron K4 with Brown Switches
  7. Laptop typing, LG Gram1

I am much faster at writing than I am at typing. And I like to let my writing get scribbly and messy or write in bold or cross shit out or go in the margins or draw arrows linking ideas i left behind. when the thoughts are beaming into my head at warp speed all ideals of penmenship and neatness are out of bounds, its about GETTING IN ON THE PAGE.

And so for writing when that kind of mood comes, ive been using the mini-comp mostly before bed to write about small daily stuff. Usually it goes into 5 or 6 pages anyways.

The fullsize is a bit clunky so I dont travel with it whereas the mini-comp fits in my pocket. I use it for journalling basically out of proximity if it happens to be nearby when i need to write.

The Bookaroo A6 was a gift from M for photography notes. It has a cute little pocket on the front to stick a pen in or scrap of notes. I use it for shoots, projects, or exploring creative ideas, its nice to have my creative notes all in one place. Some of those ideas ive been porting into the film page after polishing them up.

The sketchbook Ive had since I started working on my masters degree about a year into grad school. All my project ideas, progress notes, lab happenings, some data, some calculations, some theoretical testing, design sketches to later be made in CAD. that kind of stuff. its messy and so it works being a large sketchbook with no lines no borders no rules.

The eBook is what i use when travelling usually because I usually want to read on travel anyway, so its not a big deal to also bring the stylus and then i have all my books (thanks anna's archive) and a journal ready to go. eReaders are a fun rabbit hole to go down if you've never tried one2. Anyway, I read alot of books on it, and the note taking app is fine for what I need in that I can write in it with a stylus and it just works.

The laptop i use when i want to sit on the couch or am at work or the lab and need to write something. I'll then use LocalSend (highly recommend, works on any device) to transfer the .md files back and forth to my desktop where i keep the backups and master copies of everything.

The desktop is probably my favorite because the clicketyclackety of my keyboard tickles my brain. Its also comforting to be able to mash ctrl-s and know the file is safe and then backed up. But i am not as fast at typing as my scribbling on paper can be. so when i want to have a clean copy of some ideas that are readable and can be edited and cut up and redrafted, ill type it. If theres something that happened or i need to work through it and i need to just get it out of my head to know what i really feel then itll be pen and paper as fast as my hand can move. generally those that start on paper dont get revised again. Theyre just for me. I have been slowly digitizing them all and am being as faithful to the original as I care to be. I've found a few games on steam that are like typing games but for adults, they seem really chill and relaxing and could typing by a few more words per minute. I think Im at about 50 wpm if im really focusing on typing fast but normally im more focused on the ideas and how to convert the soft elusiveness of a thought into a string of words. writing with pen and paper just comes more naturally and the tactile feedback is very nice.

for digital stuff i also really like typing in all lowercase without any punctuation sometimes it feels more expressive of natural thought or spoken word its also alot less buttons to press and i canget the wodsr out faster and imfree to not care about typos. as far as what software i use you can read about that here

so i do both writing and typing, its messy but humans are messy. i dont really care to consolidate it much more than maybe using one of the eReader/mini-comp/fullsize. One for work, one for creativity, one for physical journaling, and a digital mishmash of journaling and blogging. Thats plenty, it is enough.

-Bruce

  1. With ubuntu 24, at some point Ill write up a post on how to flash an OS onto this laptop, it was not simple. LG locked down the bios to not let you do ANYTHING except use the preinstalled windows. The correct method was buried on Reddit with only 2 upvotes.↩

  2. eReaders are dope. I usually explain it as more than a kindle less than an iPad. The display is uhhmazing, no eyestrain, it looks like a book. Each pixel is actually a small sphere containing physical black particles which get statically charged in the up state where its visible (pixel is black) or in the down/off state (pixel is white). And with those small spheres the display can still be 300+ dpi. On top of that, the reader only uses power when changing the display. Only when changing the display. This makes for extremely long battery life. With using the backlight to read at night, it lasts me about a month (maybe 30-40 hours of use). Without the backlight I once went without charging it for 4 months. There's a few big manufacturers out there; Boox, Remarkable, Kindle (ew Bezos), and SuperNote. Check out MyDeepGuide on youtube. Generally eReaders are kind of limited with the software it can run because of the refresh rate. The full screen refresh can be quite jarring, but for reading full text pages you dont notice it at all because the entire display changes at once. You can browse the internet and scroll, but mostly i only connect it to the internet to transfer more epubs onto it, or to look something up on wikipedia quickly. I added a matte screen protector because it gives the screen some texture and makes writing with a stylus less slippy and closer to pen on paper. The color displays are being developed and are out there on but they're kind of trash imo, still like 5-10 years out from being usable for general digital work like replacing your main monitor. If you're interested, get a used one: save some cash and ewaste, the new generations aren't that different.↩