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Working With the Garage Door Up Is Great (But You Might Want to Get Dressed First)
Because some ideas can wither in the light
I enjoyed reading this piece from Writing Slowly, about whether or not we should publish all our notes online. While they’re still percolating. “Working with garage door up” is a popular way of describing it.
Writing Slowly came up with four pluses and four minuses for publishing all one’s notes online, but it wasn’t a draw. My conclusion is the same: there are positives to the approach but it’s not for them, or for me. Perhaps with a focused subset of notes on a specific topic, but no way with everything!
No one needs to see the literary equivalent of us in our underwear, before we’ve had a shower and cleaned our teeth. While uncombed hair and mismatched clothing are fine, some parts of the thinking process may be best left behind closed doors.
The image that for me best sums up this process of making short notes to create longer pieces of writing is that of my little worm farm. All sorts of scraps get dumped in at the top. And mostly unseen, the worms turn everything into nourishing compost. — Writing Slowly
