Why try to blog again?
Or, learning to write.
I am a writer
I am a researcher. My specialty is Mathematics. Logic, in particular. Most of my work consists of thinking and putting it down in paper.1
My writing process is usually slow. Lots of thinking; then a writing spurt; then many rounds of editing. Read on iPad, edit; print and read on paper, edit; read on computer; edit; and then repeat each one a few times. This may also involve co-writers.
After something is done, put it on ArXiV and send to some journal or conference. Wait a few weeks or months for an answer.2 Then either do some small revisions or start again.
I've done this a few times. Still not many, but I have a few published papers. I also wrote my PhD thesis, with 100+ pages. I am a writer.
I am not a writer
I never really learnt how to write an essay (or any other genre). Maybe I was able to write until Middle School; but I have little memory of that. Most of the non-mathematics I have written was for High School; unfortunately Brazil also has five-paragraph essays.
I never saw much sense in writing them. The writing process I had was never useful after my university entrance exams. Find a well-founded opinion about something you only vaguely have some idea, and then writing it down, fast; this never fit with the way my thinking works. Writing them was not fun or fulfilling either. I am happy I don't have to write them anymore.
The other long-ish form texts I remember writing were for my Japanese classes oratory contests. The writing was fine. Having to remember what I wrote was hell. Even now I only prepare outlines for my presentations.3
I have tried blogging before. Either the topic was too specific and I have little to write about. Or, as in my more professional blog, I don't want to spend time on it when I could be doing some productive or enjoyable work.
I am not a writer.
Why try to blog again?
The aim of this blog is to write down some of my thoughts. This blog will have no theme in specific. New posts will appear when they are done. I already have a few things in mind.
And, if I continue writing, I might eventually learn how to write.
And a bit of bureaucracy.↩
Or limbo. A journal to which I submitted a paper last year went kaput and I had to submit somewhere else.↩
This is good a topic for another post.↩