Implementing the Wordle doctrine

My schedule is faltering. Half of the days I’m starting late. Most days I’m abandoning the tasks I set myself. And I quit before the set hour.

I’m going to shift around my schedule using what I’m now calling my Wordle Doctrine.

With every move, play to win

I’ve been trying to work on shorter pieces, but when I do, one of two things happens.

1. I experience a meh followed by ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
2. I immediately want to turn the idea into another novel.

For me, playing to win means writing a novel quickly – one month not six months. I need to learn that skill because if a draft takes me six months to write, I’ll have thought of ten new ideas that will be pulling my heart in ten different directions.

Stop placing safe bets

Writing articles on Medium or short stories on Simily seem like safe bets. I could build an audience there. But that’s how people end up becoming writers who write articles about writing fiction (instead of writing fiction), or end up with the wrong audience. I’m going to shift these projects to the end of my priority list into the “if I feel like it” pile.

Don’t prioritize incremental gains over big wins.

These days when I write fiction, I usually end up with something that I like. I can see that I’ve improved. But going back to my two responses above, the piece is either something that I’m not interested in publishing, or I like it so much I want it to become a novel. The incrememntal gains are nice, but at the end of the day I’m still struggling to write my novel draft.

Use gut instinct to reduce the brain’s cognitive load

It’s a bit scary to start writing the next chapter of a novel. I never quite feel prepared. What if this isn’t right? I’ll have ruined the draft!

Ashes, all is ashes!
– Boober Fraggle

I feel the same anxiety while I’m guessing the next word in the daily Wordle and can end up jumping from one idea to another. But if I don’t take a stance and just write the next scene, I’ll be overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities. And unlike Wordle, I can always edit the draft later.

Optimize the first move to simplify the game

I’m still figuring out what my first move is. Is it writing here on LifeLog? Should I go back and edit what I wrote the day before? Should I brainstorm ideas for my next scene? Maybe I need to brainstorm the night before and have that work sitting on my desk in the morning?

My next move is probably strategizing about what this first move should be.

Whatever it ends up being, it should simplify the game for me. Like a good opening to chess, it limits the number of patterns I need to learn.