Hard to Write

I am not going to lie; it has been hard to focus on writing these days. I do have things to write about, but unless the writing is less than 1,000 words, it is hard for me to finish and publish it.

For the past year, I have been writing a reflection for high school students about my undergrad path in Computer Science. Coming in at close to 22,000 words, I am not close to done. I still have three more years to cover.

To plan my writing better, I have taken a cue from a former Rochester professor, Phillip Guo, about writing. He states:

Will at least 100 people care about this topic three years from now?

The following don’t qualify, so I rarely write about them:

• commentary on news events or fads
• reactions to someone else’s article
• personal notes that only my friends would care about
• Also, if I see many people writing about a topic, then I avoid it unless I have a drastically different perspective.

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