Abandon Text!

W. H. Auden once said: "Poems are not finished; they are abandoned." I have been abandoning writing projects for many years, since only the pressure of deadline and high expectations ever got me to finish, or even start, anything of merit. This blog is an attempt to create a more consistent, self-directed writing habit. Hopefully a direction and voice will emerge.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

"Writher" for 110 points

I am nursing a ferocious Scrabble addiction. I played it as a kid, but didn't really get into then. About five years ago I played a game with my wife's family over the holidays, and I suddenly got interested again. I bought a book on Scrabble, and played a computer for a while . . . but eventually interest faded again.

Now it's happened again. My sister-in-law got a deluxe Scrabble board for Christmas, and we played a game. I downloaded a Scrabble game onto my Palm, which turned out to be my undoing. My taste for puzzles ranges in the two- to three-minute range, which is why I got hooked on doing SQL queries: it's the closest thing to instant gratification that you can get in programming. That rush from doing SQL is scarily like playing playing a bingo on a triple-word score with a "w". I say "scarily" because that little addiction to SQL lead to a whole new career path and changed me from a molecular biologist into a database consultant.

Now that I can walk around with Scrabble in my pocket, and take a hit while I wait for something to print out, I suddenly find myself playing it a lot. An awful lot. Compulsively. So where could this be leading?

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