Some stuff about reading and writing

BoingBoing posted this bit about "Writing in the Age of Google," quoting William Gibson on his writing habits. Gibson suggests that having online distractions actually improves his ability to write: " I need a certain stimulation. It kind of feels like when you're floating underwater and you're breathing through a straw. The open Firefox is the straw: like, I can get out of this if I have to. I can stay under until I can't stand it anymore, and then I go to BoingBoing or something." I've been noticing lately that my own attention span is getting increasingly short, thanks to Facebook, this blog, and Allmj.com (online MahJongg--the real kind, not the solitaire kind). All these little addictions don't seem to be improving my writing or anything, but they do keep me tied to my laptop so I guess that's something. I could be practicing my salsa moves or playing my guitar or actually cleaning my house or something. So maybe in the end the micro-seconds where I am actually working will add up.

Also, people apparently read websites using an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal movements followed by a vertical scan down the page. They found this out using eyeball tracking software of some kind.

Another random nugget: in conversation with some friends the other night about how we motivate ourselves to work, I coined the term "prewarding." I used to reward myself for good behavior (i.e. finishing a book or a few pages of writing or whatever), but I have gotten into the bad habit of prewarding myself. i.e. Let me buy these cool pens and post-it flags so that I will be motivated to proofread my manuscript.... or Let me just go shopping and buy that yellow dress I was thinking about, and then I'll do work for a good 6 hours, because otherwise I will just be thinking about the dress anyway and I'll be distracted. Between the prewarding and the microsecond attention span, I have actually been rather productive, for some reason: I proofread and edited my manuscript once in 5 days (one chapter a day) and also drafted my bodies/wartime/women workers article (although I still need an argument). So maybe I deserve another preward before I go through the manuscript again.