"Categories": restore erroneously-removed content, separate notes
I thought I was just being pretentious by writing prose in Git, but it actually
just saved me: while rearranging content in my last commit yesterday, I
actually deleted several very important paragraphs! (I was _wondering_ why my
git-wordcount was so low!)
Let's also put the notes/outline for this post in a separate file: I seem to be
more comfortable growing this draft from the top down.
... suppose I finally publish this Monday? (Publishing is an
emotionally-charged act, particularly since I probably want to promote to
/r/GenderCriticalGuys and Slate Star Culture War just afterwards.) Today I'm
offline to work on—maybe even finish a first draft of??—"The Categories".
I should probably finally publish this tonight? (After like, a year.) I'm sure
this could still be a much stronger piece in so many ways if I were a better
writer, but I'm hitting diminishing returns to further edits.
The change from "is clearly" to "feels" related to my sexuality is very
important, given that I don't don't trust other people's assertions that their
gender identity "clearly" isn't caused by their sexuality.
I might want to use the "I'm supposed to say _she_" line elsewhere; if you're
going to be mean, at least make it count in a context where it matters, not
tucked away into an irrelevant aside about something else.
provisionally declare writer's bankruptcy on "Memoirs" pt. II
I really did have a lot of interesting delusions back in April that could, with
sufficient writing skill, be turned into a genuinely engaging memoir that
people would want to read despite the lack of objectively important events. But
it's been a while, and I want more general effortposts on page 1 of my blog—not
a rambly Diary entry about stuff that happened the better part of a year
ago. Perhaps the most interesting insights and visions from this period can be
worked into some future work of fiction?
My commit-discipline when writing is much weaker than when coding—as you've
noticed, I'll often make little changes to many files, and then lump them into
one commit under the message "check in". In this case, I want to start my
writing day with a clean repo state, so that the git-wordcount (new command I
wrote, like it sounds) of my next "drafting 'The Categories ...'" commit is
more localized in time.
I still don't know how to execute on the anecdote I was going to tell
here. What if we just cut it? And cut the _Free to Be_ blockquote, which wasn't
adding enough value for the space it takes up?—does that make the title too
inside-referencey, or was that already the case, quote or no?
link ref for "tense exchange on the blog in which I had protested that"
This is spoiling my pseudonymity in a way that I haven't before (linking
directly to my real name in a way that's not plausibly deniable, like the _An
Algorithmic Lucidity_ link I left in the "Joined" repost; or buried in the
source repo linked in the footer), but that's a joke, anyway (I've made links
in the other direction, from my real name to _Untrue Thought_, several times)—I
want to link up all the relevant context that I can.
although I'm currently leaning against editing/publishing this into a post—this
blog doesn't need more filler or obscure cultural references (pop culture is
obscure because all fiction is obscure)
swap order of Reimer/Gage and "four lights" interludes
Maybe I shouldn't have established a convention of not titling these? Some
might say that what is now "Interlude XI" is tasteless dark humor, but if you
can't impulsively publish tasteless dark humor on your own blog—
Well, impulsive writing and publishing, even of a tasteless diaglogue scrap, is
better than the horror of not-writing, which we've had enough of.
(probably need to edit the phrasing before publishing—wasn't Reimer a botched
circumcision (more like circum-trans-ion if you ask me!—but you did not ask me)
or something rather than cloacal extrophy?—should I mention his twin?)
My day in court being cut after coach pointed out that non-gender-related
Diary-like rambling is boring and no one cares
Part of me feels like I should add a paragraph about how I botched the
aftercare by trying on makeup after I realized that my roommate is out of town
and got this painful pimples on my chin? But maybe we can just shove this in
the queue already
If I can so easily dash out bullet points describing what material I want to
cover, converting the bullet points into paragraphs of actual prose shouldn't
be so hard, right? Right?
Obviously, I shouldn't let my pretty attachment the Either/Or title trope
interfere with the actual objective of clearly communicating my ideas! "Why I
Don't Care About Your Feelings" is too easily read as intrinsic callousness,
whereas the text itself makes clear that it's instrumental callousness: it's
precisely _because_ I care about people that I can't let the fact of my caring
be exploited.
I've hired a writing coach. Hopefully she'll help me actually get out the
things I want to say on a reasonable schedule—it'll take dedication and hard
work to get out three+ good posts a week, but it's not delusional.
I still want to work in a sentence or paragraph somewhere about how there are a
_lot_ of "dark" AGPs out there, but it's worth committing this version that at
least reads all the way through which I could publish without dying of
embarrassment.
I don't know if anyone will notice, but I think it's adorable and entirely
on-theme if I abbreviate the first name of male cited authors (when it's not
too distracting in my subjective opinion) but not women.
Style ruling: the definite article at the beginning of the alternative title
should be capitalized even though "Or" is also capitalized. Justification: the
second ("alternative") title should be on equal footing with the first title;
if the second title had been selected as the first title, the definite article
would be capitalized.
continuing to draft "Minimal Viable Product", but ...
Do we really want to pollute _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue
Thought_ with _more_ akrasia-blogging? ("The Blockhead" was bad enough.)
It's been a worthwhile exercise to get the blood in my fingers flowing, but
I can imagine a reader crying out, "So stop _telling_ me that you have so
many important thoughts left to share, and fucking _show_ me!"—and she
wouldn't be wrong. Maybe salvagable for my real-name blog?
The one word "ozy" felt like a reasonable lowercase tag at the time, but I'm
likely going to end up with "Julia Serano" and "Scott Alexander" tags, which
should clearly be capitalized; I should treat Ozy the same.
(At commit time, the development server seems to still be rendering the tag as
lowercase, which is _deeply confusing_ and may need to be debugged later??)
so like, there's _also_ a _far_ more "incriminating" link to my real-name blog
(!) still in there, but I almost think the æsthetic of my ostensible
pseudonymity is better satisfied by leaving it in, as if it were just something
Saotome-Westlake happened to stumble across on the web and remember enough to
link. Remember that story about how the key to breaking the Enigma was that it
never mapped a letter to itself? Let's be smarter than that, sort of
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / log