Saadia's Blog

Category: Write

  • Danger

    I’d really like to be actively writing again.

    They say that the very act of writing helps you formulate better ideas, develop a point of view, problem solve.

    As Andrew Sharp put it on the Sharp Tech podcast (I’m paraphrasing here): Writing allows me to come up with “hot takes”.

    But be careful. There’s a danger to writing.

    Putting an idea out into the world does something to the ego. It’s a little pump… a little inflation. The act of publishing is an act of defiance — a dare to disagree.

    In a way, all creativity is the same. Deciding that you’re the best channel for the universe to flow through is an act for pure chutzpah.

    It’s easy to misidentify yourself as the creator. You’re the conduit.

    There’s another version of the previous sentence that goes:

    It’s easy for me to misidentify myself as the creator. I’m the conduit.

    See how I’m hedging there? I don’t want to assume I know everything, or what’s easy or difficult for YOU.

    But the writing isn’t as strong. It’s less convincing. Less certain. More ego.

    I think writing will change a lot in the next few years because of generative AI. Traditional rules and persuasive writing techniques will deprecate. Maybe writing will become more dithering and introspective. More unsure of itself. More human.

    Anyway, I’m just trying to figure it all out.

  • One Word at a Time: Update

    An update on my previous post about writing: In the spirit of making small steps toward fiction writing confidence, I’ve published an excerpt of my (unedited) novel here on my blog.

    Viewing the excerpt requires a password. I guess I’m not yet brave enough to make it fully public.

    Anyone can figure the password out. It’s the three-letter name of one of the book’s characters (all uppercase). It’s also the first letter of each paragraph in this post.

  • Protected: Plan C

    This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

  • One Word at a Time

    Hi Readers,

    It’s been a while since I’ve written here! Actually, I’ve been writing nearly every day. I’ve started work on a novel – I’m around 20,000 words in. Aiming for 80—100k words, which is quite a lot.

    Writing a novel has been great for me. I’ve always harboured a secret desire to write fiction. When I was a kid, I loved writing stories, and would win all sorts of awards for them. As an adult, I became more self-conscious about spending time in any sort of fantasy world – like it was an immature or childish act.

    For me, beginning to write a science fiction novel was an act of overcoming fear. Exposure therapy – one word at a time.

    I’m still nervous about sharing my work publicly, even though I know that there will come a time when I’ll have to be actively promoting it! Just think, at some point I’ll have to ask my friends and family, and even you, dear reader, to buy my book! Gosh, just the thought of that makes me feel ill.

    In other news, I’ve started a new job. I’m now at WP Engine, Product Manager for the Genesis suite. There’s been some stressful moments as I’ve onboarded, but mostly things are sailing smoothly.

    Block Lab is being forked and rebranded as a Genesis product. It’s a great outcome. It means I’ll be able to focus on it full time from here on out.

    I got some film developed yesterday. It was water damaged, so it didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. But it got me thinking that I haven’t really shared my photography much on this blog. Maybe I’ll post one photo a month, for a while. It could be a neat way of warming up to sharing other types of creative work with you in the future.

    Chat soon,

    Luke