The Sound of Constraints

Old-School Keyboards. Friction. Toyko 60. GNR. Smile. A Game of Thrones. Writebook. F-1 Trillion Longbed. Trust.

Aug 27, 2024

Howdy, reader! Summer has flown by, and I’ve been bouncing between writing projects, leading to a discovery of sorts.

What you write with influences what you write. For me, the tools change the outcome. This may sound counterintuitive. A story is a story, right?

But writing is a game of scarce resources.

Consider this, I love the sound of my custom-built keyboard. The clickity. The clack. Certain mechanical keyboards possess subtle sound shifts. Stick with me—once upon a time, I followed the white rabbit to pursue haptic perfection and kept going.

And so, I have multiple keyboards of various shapes and sizes. Some with cherry MX switches—red and green. Holy panda too. I once owned two IBM Model Ms, but they are becoming harder to find in the world—lost relics. Outside the sound, the key layouts of each possess subtle differences.

For my day-to-day, I typically rely on two old-school keyboards.

One’s layout is expansive, includes a number pad and a full set of function keys. The other is minimal, letters primarily—more of a Tokyo 60 design. Here, to use the delete key, for example, I shift, which is tied to a letter. With this subtle constraint, I write differently. I think more.

It’s hard to express the difference, but I’ll try. In high school, I loved a certain word-blaster computer game. It had these falling words. To save the hero, type fast or certain doom strikes the universe. Raise your level by hitting a hundred words a minute—that’s wild fast. But by playing, muscle memory develops.

For me, the expansive layout is my ease and speed setup. So here, I write long-flowing sentences and then tap backspace frequently because the letters don’t cost anything. The second, at times, I have to think a bit more to delete. Because the extra shift key adds a tiny amount of friction, I pause. And I don’t write as much. This is valuable for a writer who likes to express the nitty gritty of a scene. If you’ve read Knights of Legend, I struggle with leaving anything to the imagination. And my editor pushes, often challenging me to cut the paint flecks and uneaten popcorn kernels after the epic ballgame.

But my writing process often brings too much to the page; I see everything, even the non-essential.

Now, I’ll use one keyboard to write the first draft and the other to revise. That’s not exclusive. Sometimes, I’ll shift depending on my mode, feel, and what I’m writing. If it’s sunny outside, I might even grab something else entirely to spare others from the mechanical volume. Do yourself a favor, play with iPad Pro’s latest keys. Apple has screwed up the inputs before, but not here—this is portable joy.

Dear reader, I know you’re laughing at me. I realize the words don’t cost anything using either keyboard. But I also own a tried-and-true full on old-fashion beast from the 1930s. Here, the words do cost. The ink. Maintenance. Paper. And whiteout? Oh, those were the good old days.

If you don’t believe simple constraints matter, take the college admission process. It’s easy now; the Common Application can be used nearly everywhere. But putting the application in a typewriter, lining it up perfectly, correcting mistakes, and mailing it out stamp and all—that was work. I even remember writing out essays longhand before typing the final draft.

With this much work, three schools becomes enough. Today? The average kid applies to twelve.

Thinking Ahead, Build a List

In writing, it’s important to think through a project before beginning; I don’t do this enough. What are the constraints?

Sure, you can overdo thinking through these. But how you write, the process—yes, it matters. Writing is hard. Constraints improve outcomes. Use your imagination, here are a few examples:

Keyboard Positioning. Tokyo 60 vs. vs. QWERTY vs. Dvorak vs. Custom? This is all about key layout. For example, Dvorak places the most commonly used letters (A, O, E, U, I, D, H, T, N, S) on the home row. And with operating systems today, a writer can customize infinitely.
Old school—buy a legendary typewriter. There are so many types on Etsy, it’s overwhelming. I’m chasing a Hemingway mobile; let me know if anyone has a lead.
The operating system. Mac? Windows? Try writing a novel on a Linux machine.
Time to Finish. I once promised a five-year-old to draft a story in October for Christmas. I can’t go back in time and do that again, but any deadline helps.
Chapter Length. Can I stick to 1,000 words or less? James Patterson keeps his lean and mean.
Number of Drafts. How long does one want to tinker on a project? Usually, I say, I can do this all day, Captain America style. Note I typically track up to 12, but that doesn’t mean I should.
Feedback Mechanism. Beta readers? How many? Friends? Family? Paid editors?
The Medium. Will this be printed? Hardback or paper? Digital? What about a five-word story on a billboard? Or serial style. Dickens tried—why can’t I?
Audience (the meta question). Who am I writing this for? Am I trying to learn about a topic? Do I want to make money?

The Importance of Constraints

In general, placing limits lets one release the work to the wild, test the market, and see what happens. My least favorite book I’ve toiled upon is The Day Life Breaks. I passionately hate this effort. The side characters steal the show. The main character I disdain. And to this day, I wonder if it subconsciously led to a job change—probably the best role I’ve ever stepped into. Hey, it’s hard to know if you’re in the good old days when you’re in them. I don’t know.

Still, it’s one of those books I should have placed in a drawer. Or, printed one copy, deleted the electronic footprint, and locked it inside a safety deposit box. The Wu-Tang Clan made one record, stored it in a silver box, and sold it for two million. That’s an artistic statement—not my work. I should have just burnt Elliot’s tale.

But I didn’t. I released it into the wild. Why? Well, I think it has a message—a make-you-think book. And yes, people should think more. Also, I didn’t want to tweak it anymore. The book is cursed. A regular pox on my house so I released the plague. It’s like a cicada.

For candor, Elliot’s story is not awful. Yes, there is too much tracking action, the writing could be better, and the finish lands but one character I didn’t give their due. I should go back and finish in 14 years like those cicadas. They’ll make their noise, and I’ll edit inside a swarm for penance.

As I write this, I wonder if I should have set the tale about Silicon Valley being in the Mid-West aside. You see, it takes a lot of work to add constraints mid-flight.

But that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t.

Constraints don’t make a project worse. Without them, works can go on forever and iterate into eternity.

In music and literature, there are numerous examples of never reaching the finish line:

Guns N’ Roses, Chinese Democracy. Axl took 14 plus years, and, sadly, Appetite for Destruction never presented itself. Some publications considered it a hot mess, musicians received guitar credits but can’t recall when they completed the riffs. Too much time had passed. Why is there a song about the IRS? Does Willie Nelson have a writer’s credit? He pioneered working with the government agency to pay off his debts.
Smile, The Beach Boys. This is the follow-up to Pet Sounds, which is arguably the perfect vinyl record. Unfortunately, Brian’s masterpiece was released in an unfinished state in 2011. Oh, what might have been–“It’s in there somewhere.”

Yes, there are exceptions—genius gets in the way. Tolkien labored for years on The Lord of the Rings. And there is the masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, which incidentally was never truly finished. The author died, leaving it to his estate to sort it out. There are a host of contrarian efforts. But there are oh so many what could have been. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Sanditon. The Last Tycoon.

For a writer, it’s hard to know when a work is finished. So why not use constraints to do the task? Technically, this isn’t just a post on writing. Limiting factors have their place in corporate planning, start-up funding, vacation planning, and the list goes on. Budget. Words. Fixed resources. Time. Or an outside review to say, “It’s okay to let go.” And yes, George R.R. Martin, get to writing. I’ll send my keyboard—the fast one. The finish to Game of Thrones shouldn’t be left with HBO and cinematic dragons.

Notes:

Sanditon is Jane Austen’s last novel, left unfinished. She most likely abandoned the project due to illness.
A one of a kind album—Wu Tang Clan.
I’m not suggesting GNR had tax challenges, but Willie Nelson has a solid and often overlooked album to pay off his obligations. Who will buy my memories?
I don’t have an exact source on college admission statistics, but I believe I’m fairly close. Soon, if trends continue, students will be applying to 50 colleges.
The game I’m describing might be Typing Tutor IV: Space Invaders. But the memory is hazy.
On the image, I tried using AI to modify an entire image but gave up. Instead, I shot a collection of records and books—Pet Sounds, Post’s latest, and a certain rock album. As most of the newsletter pics are modified images to appear

Be Cool, Pass The JPLA On …

Refer a friend

Collaboration Magic (What my headphones are streaming):

F-1 Trillion Long Bed. The constraint is three minutes, give or take.

Playing with Code (Book CMS Edition):

In 2016, I wrote The Dark Harp. Prince Evan’s tale is a work of constraints launched serially—Charles Dickens style—with short chapters released on Sunday nights.

It’s a book meant to be read aloud. I did; it was written for one person alone.

However, choosing the medium took time. Newspaper? Magazine? I ended up leveraging WordPress and building a custom theme. It worked, sort of. I had to reverse the posts as the system was constructed for blogs and websites. The latest post is the one that shows … uh … first. But in launching a book serial style, the writer wants the first chapter to show up … wait for it … first. The great Ricky Bobby said it best, “If you’re not first, you’re last.”

Since that project ran its course, I’ve tried numerous custom solutions to resolve this problem—a Ruby Application that built HTML books for reading on mobile devices. Simple. Lean. Pagination included.

But one has to maintain the code by handling security updates and adjusting for browser design choices.

The folks at 37 Signals recently solved this problem by creating a book CMS (Content Management System), letting me retire a series of preview books. There are some downsides to the new approach. Added cost between domain and hosting. Also, I blew up a server, causing the site to go down–more me than anything else.

Still, it’s an easy setup. And I think the art translated well from paper to digital, which isn’t an easy feat. Drop me a note and tell me what you think (or read a sample chapter); I’ll leave it running for a month or two, assuming I don’t crater the top-line domain again.

What I’m Reading:

Trust. The unreliable narrator is a feat that’s hard to pull off.

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When Reality is No Longer a Constraint in Pictures Anymore:

It’s not necessarily the photo that’s important, but your memory. [...] “What some of these edits do is help you create the moment that is the way you remember it, that’s authentic to your memory and to the greater context, but maybe isn’t authentic to a particular millisecond.”

Pixel Team, Credit The Verge