Excursions

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It’s not easy to become a writer. It is fiendishly difficult to stay a writer. To string words together, day in day out, that would be meaningful. To be inspired to do so every day. To not get lost in the deluge of “inspiration” posts that are anything but.

Each week, I dig through the endless archives of the Internet to find those few fascinating posts, which I deliver as issues of this newsletter to assist a writer to stay inspired. This is what I had written while introducing the newsletter as part of the first issue.

There are times when we [the creative people] get stuck and look for inspiration. There are times when we wish that finding help was simpler. With this newsletter, I intend to lend exactly that to the writers, a helping hand of sorts.

With every update, I will publish a curated list of the articles and tools that I believe every writer would find interesting and helpful. I will also feature one writer that inspires me to write more, along with some of their writing.

I have struggled many a time for inspiration, for guidance. I often wished if only there was a hidden dole of helpful articles and directions that will keep me interested, motivated to trudge along. Slanting Nib & A Keyboard (referred interchangeably as Slanting Nib) will attempt to be that nudge for me first. My wish is it manages to do the same for the writer in you, manages to inspire the words in you.

Slanting Nib will be delivered every Sunday at 5 PM UTC. Featuring a personal letter and essays about something close to me, along with three thoughtfully curated posts. That's all. Each issue aims to be interesting enough to be worthy of your time without becoming too long to be a burden, a drag.

What can I expect in each issue?

Each issue generally follows some theme. The first issue focused on the history of writing, for example; the second one presented a few inspiring words from masters. As long as I could, I intended to maintain a common thread that connects all the posts included in an issue.

However, I soon realized that I needed to make the newsletter more about my thoughts. Make it personal. So in addition, I have started drafting a warm letter for the readers. I follow it up by a section of featured writing with a maximum of 3 articles. All the articles will be meaningful. I will make it a point that neither is a listicle of any form. Or one from the myriad of productivity hacks.

What if I have feedback?

I would love to hear from you. If you come across something that you think would be the right fit for an issue, do send the recommendations to me. If you find something incorrect or some part that doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to let me know. And of course, if you like something I have included in the newsletter issue, or it helped you in some way, I would love to hear about that too.

Just hit reply to the issue or email me with any recommendations or tips, writer or tools. I am a completionist, I will acknowledge every email.

So if this sounds interesting to you, you can subscribe here. Or you can also read through the issues archive. No rush.

Isn't it odd that we can't decide on a consistent content rating system across all the countries? I know I have ranted about this a many times before this. But I just can't wrap my head around the fact that we, supposedly smart humans, haven't figured out a way yet to addresses such a trivial aspect of our film watching experience.

How difficult is it to say that this content is made for children 6 years and above? Or 13 years and above?

I know. I'm ignoring the fact that all nations are not governed the same. They have individual definitions and expectations of freedom. Oversimplifying the problem at hand may not take us anywhere. The least I can do at least is to check which countries handle this rating problem the best.

I find it fascinating that Turkey has the simplest content rating system. These are the rating — General Audience, 6+, 10+, 13+, 16+, 18+. Austria is in the same league — Unrestricted, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16. Russia's not too far behind, too — 0+, 6+, 12+, 16+, 18+.

India has a simple range — U, UA, A, S. But those characters are meaningless. How is one to map them to the age of the child?

United States follows an even more muddled system — G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17. That's complication is unnecessary. It's unfortunate that those are the ratings that are most widely followed.

A couple of curious cases. South Africa has these categories — A, PG, 7–9PG, 10–12PG, 13, 16, 18, X18, XX. Plus these sub-descriptors — S, L, V, P, N, H, D, SV. Wow! I am sure a significant post-production budget goes towards arriving at the right rating for a film.

And finally, of course, China. It has no official rating system. There are only two categories — suitable for all ages and banned.

---

Here are a few additional observations and a proposal. 6, 16 and 18 are the most commonly agreed boundaries for the films. Only a few countries have any ranges beyond 18.

So, if we manage to find an agreeable boundary between 6 ad 16, we should be able to cover major countries with these ratings — 0+, 6+, 12+, 16+, 18+ . I am sure folks smarter than me will find a better way of conveying all why this system should work. Or convince me why this will never work.

I am Amit Gawande and this is an experiment that I have undertaken to answer a key question that I often ask myself subconsciously – what if my choice of service is impacting the type of writing I do online?

I want to write deep, meaningful posts that I put more work in, put more thoughts around. My primary site hosted by Micro.blog does not allow such a workflow. Here's an attempt to see if a more conventional site allows that space to my mind to work on thoughts.

If you have reached this space, it possibly means I have managed to post and share at least a couple of long-form essays. Does that mean that the experiment was fruitful? I guess, when I find an answer to that, this about page would read very differently.

Skies blanketed by clouds
Breeze idling with playfulness
Garden nurtured at home.

Ingredients of a peaceful morning, And a calm mind.

What Will Happen to My Music Library When Spotify Dies? →

These methods of archiving are either imperfect, impractical, or both—and besides, even if I went through with them, chances are that decades from now, I’d just end up with a monster text file or a long-obsolete hard drive that would be a pain to sync up with some future listening platform.

I lost my music collection some 7 years back and I never attempted to build a personal music library since then. I have accepted the fact that the benefits of streaming services (mainly around discovery) are more valuable to me than my quest for a personal collection of my favorite songs. Unfortunate, but practical.

I am wary of using any Apple services as my default - they make it very difficult to use them outside of their ecosystem. I do not use only Apple devices. There was a time when I did. And then things slowly changed.

I use Windows at work. I use Android and iOS. I use iPad. Apple services rarely work well across all the platforms. Just access then on web is not an answer am comfortable with.

So as much as I dislike it, I am slowly using more and more services from Google and Microsoft. Surprisingly, Microsoft does well to fill the void between Android and iOS platforms with apps that work well on both platforms backed by Microsoft services.

I find it crazy that neither Google nor Apple are keen to address this key problem.

In the last three days, I have started reading three new books. It wasn't planned, people who know my likings recommended the books to me. And each read brilliantly in samples. So, I am reading five in parallel now - a humour, a mystery, a self-help, one on psychology and one fantasy. Now, that's a personal record. No harm doing that, right? Right?

The publication portals and channels around tech news are too noisy. They make exclusives out of trivial bites. Plus, the updates to the tech that they boast about are incremental, more often than not. It is crazy yet how many such portals and channels exists today. Just open YouTube or any feed and search for a mobile brand. It is an endless list of attention hungry wannabes.

It is so unfortunate that the genuine and worthy thoughts and updates are lost in this noise.

I am reading many people's writing process today and am absolutely stunned at how simple my writing needs are. I don't write drafts after drafts in any tool. All my drafts are one line ideas in my notebook or saved articles with tags "to-write". I find time for writing and complete a post about an idea or article.

For that matter, most of my posts are spontaneous -- I get a thought and I put it down into a post. I don't insert too many images, individual or as part of the posts. Sure, there are times when I need to spend time on researching or explaining some projects that I am working on. Or when I am writing a fiction. Such posts are very rare, though (and continue to become even rarer as the time goes on).

Plus, I like writing in Markdown. But I am not too attached to the language. I could very well go about writing posts after posts without using any of the Markdown syntax. The most I do is emphasize a word or a line. It won't matter to me how I do it. That said, I continue to enjoy writing my post in Markdown editors and would do that wherever I get a chance.

There was a time when all my posts originated in some text editor installed on my laptop. But that's not the case any more. Most of the posts that I write are in a portal of sorts hosted on web - mainly Quill. (I wish Micro.blog had a better writing interface, though. The current one is too basic and doesn't work well for longer posts). On a mobile device, I only write microposts and I would post them from some Micropub client -- I use Micro.blog apps (Gluon or Dialog) or Indigenous.

All in all, I have realized I have a simple publishing workflow. I open a web or mobile app, put down my thoughts and hit publish. So, what use do I have for the text editors any more?

I dislike the fact that I have published very few long form posts recently. It's as if I can only think in micro form. Should it matter? I don't think so. But I have slowly come to the realization that I am writing with one eye on the character count. It's really foolish of me to do that. But I do this subconsciously.

Somewhere deep down, a thread also continuously evaluates how the post is going to look in a timeline -- the only one where I believe it matters would be Micro.blog. Again, it's foolish. But I have realized it affects me. If it didn't, I would be publishing more posts with titles.

I need to bring my mind out of the habit to character check my posts.

Could Gen Z Free the World From Email? →

The main problem with email then is not necessarily that there is too much of it, but there is too much competition.

And yet, email continues to stay relevant.

Falling in love with Strangers →

I knew I missed little exchanges with strangers during sheltering in, but I’d forgotten just how beautiful and hilarious humanity really is. We are so silly.

No doubt, today’s the age of pampered kids. Is it good? Is it bad? Does it have to be one of these?

How Growing Up in the ’80s Felt Like Freedom

I’m struggling to find a convinient way to share videos with family members for a recent wedding event. I want one that provides convinience for receivers but allows control with me as sender. I’m not sure if YouTube performs copyright checks even on unlisted videos.

OnePlus completely messed up my upgrade plans with its product launches this year.

I have been pleased with my OnePlus 7, it has worked brilliantly for the past two years. For that matter, the phone continues to work well for me. It hasn’t slowed down. Battery still lasts me throughout the day. I just wish for better cameras now.

I had made my mind that my next phone was going to be the pro variant of next OnePlus. But somehow the company has managed to screw up its most valuable brand.

First, they priced the devices far too high this year. In itself, it’s OK if you can match the offerings of the other flagship brands - mainly Apple and Samsung - beyond the device. OnePlus still has some work to do to reach that state.

Then, after unnecessary hype, they launched a product which has been marred by coverage that they could very well have avoided. They mindlessly under-spec’d the non-pro variant of the device. The pro variant is facing the outcome of overpromising and then deliver just on expected lines.

I could still decide to ignore the negative coverage and go ahead with the Pro variant. The reviews haven’t been too bad, and I know what I can expect from a OnePlus device now. But I wish the company did not make the decision so difficult for me. I had just started warming up to the Android platform and its benefits.

It still boggles my mind that there is no link to GoodReads from Amazon when I am looking at a book there. Or way to add it to lists – for example in “Want to read” list.

I looked at my daughter get frustrated that a book is too boring for her - it never holds my interest she says. I asked her to stop reading it, to which she said, “But I have it now, so I will have to read it someday, right?”

I guess it’s time for her first lesson to read more - stop reading it if you find it boring.

Is pinboard still the best bookmarking option that exist out there?

I understand link rot is considered as a huge problem. But why? I mean I technically understand why. But I feel it is a feature of every entity, digital or physical - if not taken care of, it gets lost with time. Rotten.

There are days when you just don’t want to do anything that you need to do. You know you should do it. But you can’t convince your mind to be focused at it. Having one such day – these are the worst. The days with roadblocks are easier to handle.

The only time I would trust a service like One-Time Secret - a way to share sensitive information - is if it is open sourced. Even with that, I would be extremely careful. I understand, without context secrets are gibberish. But still, I feel slightly uncomfortable.

My writing halts when my reading pauses. It’s frustrating to see the thoughts sit in the corners of mind. I want to bring them out, the inertia pushes it down.

Curious, was Goodreads recently hacked or something? There are random likes from my account to random folks' updates - scheduled every half an hour. And same the other way round, I am receiving notifications from random folks. I am worried for how long has this been going on.

The technology coverage across portals is so boring - The Verge, Engadget all included. Most bits are fed by the companies and so the writeups read as PR. Even when they publish something exclusive, it’s those companies pushing the narrative. Or it’s meaningless rumour.

I am in that state of mind where any book over 400 pages gets an instant rejection from me. I just can’t read them through and through. I know the books that I have enjoyed the most over the years have been long, but recently I dread them.