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The current flock of RSS feeds winging their way through Slumbering isn't just the result of an overdose of O'Reilly books and espresso. It's part of a new approach I'm taking to creative productivity. A new new approach.
Since 1997 I've been operating under the Newspaper Comic Strip Paradigm, wherein you pick a creative project and you do it on a rock-solid schedule until you die, you exhaust your artistic reserves, or the World Serpent rises from the deep and poisons the earth and sky. So I start things on a schedule, and then stop them when I fail to keep up with that schedule. That's one reason Bandwidth Theater never got off the ground as a standalone Web site; I realized I wasn't going to be able to expel an animation on a weekly basis.
But that's not the only paradigm out there. American television writers get the summer off. British television writers -- well, I'm not sure how British television works, but apparently it involves all the good shows lasting maybe eighteen episodes. Some writers even work on projects one at a time with no particular schedule. Startling!
My new approach, then, is -- to paraphrase my friend Greg -- single-minded dilettantism. I have my cherished collection of domains, and I'm going to update them as the spirit moves. I like working on my Web sites more than I like most things, so I'm anticipating that I'll keep busy.
You won't be able to visit a given site on a given day to see something new, but that's where the feeds come in. You can either read Slumbering, wherein I'll mention updates of general interest as well as my writing for Wired News and other venues outside of my direct control, or you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of the specific sites that interest you. I read feeds via Safari myself, but if you want to try a site-based solution I understand Bloglines is a popular option.
Okay. Back to work.