On What I Call this Writing

Immediately after posting the first draft, one of my readers brainstormed some ideas with me, so I’m going to run through all of them and say what I think of them.

Explorations. I don’t really love this one, because I don’t think of this site as being focused around discovery, which I consider a large part of exploration. It also has a weird feeling associated when I think of describing it to others. Sadly, I think reflections has this one beat.

Expressions. I like expressions as a word, and there is the whole fun bit about like genes get expressed, emotions get expressed, etc. that I’m having trouble connecting to right now. In terms of relating it to these writings, though, I think that it feels a little off. I think that I want to think of this as a form of expression, rather than expression itself.¹

Impressions. I do so much love the inner outer divide. There could be something fun about having impressions and expressions as the concept for what I write, because it does point out that I, rightly, am not just responding to material (impression) but that the response itself motivates action (expression). However, “want to read my expressions and impressions” feels wrong, and more importantly, ordering them would cause me so much pain.

Screaming into the void. I think that I’ve made comments here about my writing going into the void when I felt like no one read. There’s something kind of fun about asking someone if they’ve read my screams.² However, reading screams parses badly to me.

Sending into the ether. In the post I’m still working on, I talk about the ether in what I understand to be a premodern sense. Since I haven’t finished it yet, though, I don’t think that it would be good for me to attach the label just yet.

Messages. A message is a unit of information, which most of the dictionaries describe as short. While that may have been historically accurate to me, these writings³ are consistently getting into the multiple thousand words. That is, over the course of a month, I am approaching the length of a full novel.⁴^,⁵ I have trouble calling 4 percent of a novel a short unit of information. I am also not going to address whether there is, in fact, information in these digital pages.

Page is an interesting option.⁶ I like that it refers to both a leaf in a book as well as an errandboy. Then again, I don’t know quite what that means, and so will move on from it as well.

Scripts.⁷ There’s the joke that the greatest perk of a Ph.D. is that any time a package arrives, you get to say “ah, just what the doctor ordered.” Scripts also imply, at least to me, the exact font or hand that people write in. It’s long been known and believed⁸ that handwriting is informative. I also cannot help but feel like the tone of my writing says things about me.⁹ Scripts also have the connection to actors, and in general have some sort of a prescriptive¹⁰ element to them. I fear and love the idea that what exists here effects change on the world.

Scripts lack a little bit of immediate ease in understanding, though. While musings and essays and even reflections seem like something I could say to a stranger and expect them to parse my meaning, I have to imagine that if someone heard I wrote a script a day that I was either a really slow pharmacist or an incredibly prolific stagewriter. Still, all words only get meaning in as much as they are used, and so scripts are definitely up there.

On a similar note, manuscript.¹¹ Manuscripts, as the breakdown of its parts might imply, are generally implied to be hand written. However, there is an argument to be made for this work as not being printed, and therefor¹² belonging as one, along with the idea that the original version is a manuscript. This site is certainly the original version of most of these thoughts in my mind, though the fact that there are drafts might make that untrue in some valid and fundamental sense. After all, a draft is, by its very meaning, derivative.¹³

Opus and opera.¹⁴ I mean these are, by most definitions, works. However, I think that, again, people might misunderstand when they say I add to my opera daily. I also really hate that we call musical pieces by work and then number, even if I can’t quite justify why. I think that it has something to do with the fact that they’re both functionally just numbering schemes, and there doesn’t seem to be consistent which is the super and sub heading.

Works¹⁵. I do kind of love this. “look at what I have wrought”, I might say.¹⁶ However, this is not really labor, in most senses of the word. I receive no compensation, and I do not struggle to do this.¹⁷ It also feels intellectually dishonest, because I do still associate work with labor with physical exertion. That’s something to consider.

Labors¹⁸. I love this, because writings are often described as children, the output of labor in the childrearing sense is a child, and it hearkens to epic times. However, laborious is what we turn the word into, and I don’t really love that, because I want this writing to remain fun. Labors of love are, after all, labors.

Folios.¹⁹ Folio can mean a few interrelated things, which is great, because what’s one more. It does generally imply that the document is folded, though, and there aren’t any folds in digital scrolling. It also comes from the Latin for leaf, and I do like thinking of my writing as life-oriented, just like leaves. I think this might be the current winner, because it’s also a fun word to say.

Paper.²⁰ White papers are a common way to quickly represent information, often in an informal context. In general, I think that no one really has issues abstracting papers into something digital, though I feel like most still imply some sort of pagination in a printer friendly way. It also feels somewhat confusing to the eavesdropper, since I exist near academia. Still, another close one.

Illuminations.²¹ Wow I’m really digging deep into book lore. I would like to think that my writings shine light on something, but it feels pretentious to assume that they would. In an ideal world, I would be writing illuminations, but that does not mean I would refer to them as such.

Incunable or cradle. The first refers to early printings in England, and the second is the English of the term. Honestly, I do kind of like calling this a cradle. This is a place for new ideas to be birthed, or at least cared for. What does that make each writing, though? Or, is each writing a cradle, and the overall effect is the nursery? I don’t know if I like cradle, because it feels too abstract. Incunable is fun, though, and does refer to the fact that²² these writings are the beginnings of my career. It’s a little difficult for me to say and spell though.

Parchment. I do love the idea of taking a word which has a very specific (if often misused) meaning and using it intentionally in a different context. Also, I do kind of love the visceral nature of parchment. Something about turning an animal into the substrate for ideas resonates within a deep part of me. Parchment is winning out for now, I guess.

Vellum is indistinguishable from parchment, and so modern scholars use the term membrane. Ooh membrane is almost better. It points out that there is an inherent barrier, both between my mind and the keys, but also between the words and the reader. Still, both are again a little too obscure.²³

Returning to the actual list, we have letters. This makes me think of the biblical²⁴ books, which are at least somewhat public facing, and generally directed towards an explicit end. That’s true here. Letters are winning.

Characters is where my mind went from letters, since I do find it strange that we have a word which refers to both the individual glyph and the string of them together. Character, number, and glyph, however, are all a little too far from common usage for my tastes.

Writing glyphs just now made me think of the word arcana, and its singular arcanum.²⁵ I would argue that this is specialized, and accessible only to a select few. I do like “I’m working on my arcane website”, and I like thinking of the writings as self contained.

Arcana brings me to esoterica and eldritch.²⁶ Esoterica is a great word, and generally refers to the impractical or at least obscure. Obscura, though, implies some level of intentional obscurement. Eldritch originally comes from elf, and is therefore bad. Esoterica is a fun winner right now, though there isn’t a singular form of the word, I don’t think? I am ok referring to my work each day as an esoteric, though.

From esoteric, one can easily move to follies.²⁷ I feel like I remember watching a show called follies as a child, and I have to assume it was looney tunes, giving an inverse Nimrod effect.²⁸ It feels a little self denigrating to refer to these works as foolish, though it isn’t necessarily inaccurate. Time spent here, after all, is time not spent elsewhere.

Moving to the more abstract, I have yarns, spilled ink, thread, and stitch. Spilled ink is a fun one, but might be better as the title for the blog than a specific post. It feels strange at a deep level to message someone “what’d you think of my latest spilled ink?”

My mind, like the well it is, has run dry now, and so I present a list of the remaining options so one might peruse at their leisure.

Draft 1

The obvious answer is to call it a blog, but since blog comes from web log, meaning a log on the internet, I’m not sure that it’s the best term. After all, these posts are, at least hopefully, less a factual recounting of elapsed time and more a series of explorations into ideas.

My father, who I copy so much of this site from, calls his writings musings. Trawling through his site, I eventually saw that, as I see in the early posts, he initially called the posts essays. A commenter pointed out that not all of his posts are, technically speaking, essays.²⁹ Since he frequently refers to his muse in the writings, calling the writings musings became a next step. As far as I can tell, that’s the extent of his reasoning.³⁰ To muse is to contemplate or think deeply, and so there’s something to be said for the idea that, if I am thinking deeply, then I am musing.

Essay, being his initial title, is another way to refer to what I’m writing. This has the benefit of sounding a lot more pretentious³¹. It comes from the French for “to attempt”, and initially were³² used as a way to “attempt” to put thoughts into writing.³³ I don’t really know if this is so much about me attempting to put thoughts into writing as it is developing thoughts through writing, but it’s still something to consider.

Post is another easy option, since it’s sort of the default thing that most social media³⁴ uses. It, as far as I can guess and tell from three seconds of research, refers to the fact that when you wanted to distribute information broadly,³⁵ you could affix writing to a physical post. I don’t love it, and I think that most of it is just that I don’t like the way that the word feels in my mouth. It’s also vague and not impressive sounding, so that doesn’t help its case.

Experiments could be a fun name, especially since I am a scientist. I’m experimenting to figure out answers, even if I’m not using the classical scientific method. That just feels overly pretentious though.

Let’s see how that feels, “in today’s attempt, I want to think about how I feel about”. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it enough to be comfortable forcing those in my life to accept it as part of my idiolect.³⁶

Interestingly, it appears that the Latin word for “to try”³⁷ comes from the word for either stretching or having. I’m going to guess it’s the grasping one. So, how do I feel about words like grasp or containing? Eh.

If we return to musing, we get contemplations and reflections. My word processor doesn’t like making contemplation plural, so reflections is probably good. There’s an argument to be made that I am not reflecting, I’m emitting,³⁸ since the information almost always basically goes out, rather than going in both directions. Still, it is about looking for the after effects of thoughts that I’ve had and encountered. In that regard, ripples could be good.³⁹ I’m reading a book right now which says fields are just a consequence of information having a limited speed. I don’t know how that relates here, though.

I think that I’m happiest with reflections for now, even as I solicit more feedback.

Unlike my father, I do not feel the need to dedicate part of the naming to rants, because few enough of my writings are based in anger

Daily Notes

yeah that resonates↩
yes, I do ask my friends if they’ve read my blog, and no, I do not feel ashamed of that fact↩
no I will not let them be called writings at the end, because that feels wrong. Scripts? Maybe, I’ll consider that one next↩
based on NaNoWriMo standards.↩
oh, I wonder if this might be part of why I’m struggling to write a paper↩
new while writing here↩
new while writing here↩
depending on which side of the debate you fall under↩
hopefully complimentary, though I don’t know if that is always true↩
wow how have I never noticed that prescriptive is root word script↩
new while writing here↩
oh, journaling isn’t a word but therefor is??↩
and no, I will not be entertaining the idea of any calculus based names↩
new while writing here↩
new here↩
wild, it’s the past tense generally of work↩
most of the time↩
new here while writing↩
new here↩
new here↩
new here↩
hopefully↩
these have all been new↩
does bible really just mean books? yes. I hate language↩
new here↩
both new here↩
new here↩
Nimrod is a mighty hunter in the Bible↩
I don’t know if I agree with that commenter, but, lacking context, I’ll trust taht the common usage at least might differ↩
is this bait to see if he still reads this? maybe↩
for example, “Oh, yeah, I’m working on a series of essays” versus “Oh, yeah, I have a blog”↩
nominally, at least↩
it was here I took a forced three hour break↩
I hate that we’ve turned this plural into both the plural and singular↩
I really hope that broadside comes from this and not vice versa↩
which is, unfortunately, a big detterent I realize upon writing that↩
tentare, though interestingly, seems like Wikipedia lists words and forms from first person singular, not infinitive, weird.↩
don’t boo me↩
waves? currents?↩
laying? I guess in this case either way works because I can act on myself or just act↩
read: the numbers disagreed depending on the system I used↩
fixed point arithmetic (feels like it should be arithmatic because mat is math right?) might be useful, but I refuse on principle↩
that should not be next year, ew↩
honestly, a shocking amount. I think that I can write three full pages↩

Musings

I'm just copying my father

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On What I Call This Writing

Draft 2: 16 April 2025

Draft 1

Daily Notes