It’s probably just a quirk of my own mind, but sometimes I feel utterly overwhelmed by work and chores, even though my inbox, todo list, and calendar are practically empty. That’s the sort of week I’ve had.
What’s Been Happening
1.
Last week I complained so much about not being a homeowner that two different friends sent me the brochure for a beautiful apartment that happened to be on the market for a reasonable price. I haven’t yet convinced myself that I should spend all my savings on a new house, but I called the realtor anyway and went to look at the place on Friday.
As the realtor talked to me about khata bifurcation and carpet area and RERA and offsetting capital gains, I felt like I was merely cosplaying as an adult. “What does that mean?” I asked her every thirty seconds, giving away the fact that I was a hapless kindergartener who had somehow wandered into the eighth grade biology class.
I’m glad I took a few friends along to the viewing. The realtor showed us two beautiful apartments that were completely wrong for me, after which my friends sat me down for a short lecture on Words You Must Look Up Before You Even Think About Buying a House, You Unmitigated Dork. Now I know a bit more about the big bad world of real estate than I did last week, but I’m even less convinced I can afford a place of my own unless I aggressively save money for a few more years.
2.
This week I spent at least an hour every day writing fiction. I didn’t write too many words, but I learned a few things about how my creative mind wants to approach the writing process:
- I freeze up if I plan or outline my stories in advance. Knowing the story before I start typing it out makes me not want to write it at all. I do better—and have more fun—when I write by the seat of my pants. Having a vague idea of the ending and a few pivotal scenes helps, but it’s not necessary for me to start writing.
- Whether I’m reading or writing fiction, stories play out as movies in my head. Translating them into words is a massive chore, and it’s currently the biggest challenge I’m facing. In the coming week, I’m going to focus on writing one small slice of one scene at a time to see if it helps.
- Writing comes easy if I let my intuition guide me. It gets impossible if I focus on story structure, themes, character arcs, subplots—all those things they teach you in writing workshops. They might be useful tools for debugging a story that doesn’t work, but they haven’t helped me much as I try to write one from scratch.
3.
Despite being tremendously unqualified for the job, I’ve recently found myself designing large parts of the user interface for a new product that my client is building. This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself in this situation. I mostly work with startups and smaller organizations that can’t always justify hiring a full-time designer. That means the role of UI and UX designer falls to the person writing the code that puts pixels on the screen i.e. the frontend developer i.e. me.
This is not a role I’ve ever volunteered to fill or even believed myself suited for, but these days I find it to be the most satisfying part of my job. I can’t say if I’m producing good work without access to professional feedback from an actual designer, but user feedback tells me that I’ve managed to build a piece of software that meets the needs of my client and makes them happy when they use it.
Since I keep finding myself in this situation, I’ve started to seriously educate myself about design. I’ve been reading as much as I can about both visual design and user experience, and paying more attention to the design of applications I enjoy using. However, most of what I’m learning comes from trying out different things and showing them to users.
Here’s my design “process”: steal UI pattern from successful application, realize it’s not quite right for what I’m trying to build, throw away the code, steal another UI pattern, show it to a user, realize it’s not quite what they need, steal another UI pattern, on and on in a loop until I finally find something that works. It’s a time consuming process—doubly so because I’m working with code rather than Figma—but I find it relaxing and satisfying.
4.
This was a great week for catching up with friends. I had a long phone call with Abhinav early in the week, met Nemo and Pranav at Underline Center on Tuesday, had a movie night with some writing friends on Thursday evening, got a crash course on real estate from Tanvi and Neehar on Friday over lunch, and attended my regular Writers’ Club meeting on Saturday. Now it’s Sunday and I’m looking forward to meeting some folks for coffee later in the evening.
5.
Some of my clothes have mysteriously vanished. They’re not in the washing machine or the laundry basket or the wardrobe or the bathroom or the suitcase or anywhere else in the house clothes are likely to be found.
I’ve bought three pieces of clothing in the last five years. Maybe the universe is telling me to stop wearing yoga pants everywhere and finally refresh my wardrobe?
What’s Good
Win(s) of the week: wrote for at least an hour every day, started planning the purchase of a house (even if it’s very far into the future)
Looking forward to: an upcoming birthday party (a friend’s, not my own), more writing
I’m glad that: I’m surrounded by a community of smart, kind, hilarious people who have endless energy and endless plans
Links of the Week
- AI Is a Launchpad, Not a “Solution” via the Aboard newsletter
- PAGNIs: Probably Are Gonna Need Its by Simon Willison
- blr.today by Nemo
Media Diet
- Reading: The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- Playing: taking a break from games for a bit because there are too many books I want to read
- Watching: the final season of Psych
- Listening to: whichever Punjabi rap playlist Spotify wants to serve up next, and also Brat by Charli XCX
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