(2010-01-03) How Tweet Threads Cured My Writers Block Twitter As A Medium For Sketching

How tweet threads cured my writer's block: Twitter as a medium for sketching

We can’t really understand Twitter by treating it as a mediocre replacement for essays and research papers. We need to see it as a new medium on its own terms. In particular, Twitter is a medium for sketching—for playing with ideas, on the fly. Twitter is more similar to scribbling on a whiteboard or tossing ideas around at the cafe than writing a book. (By sketching I don’t mean literally just drawing; I mean any lightweight early expression of a thought.)

*Why does Twitter work so well for this? Here are some of my theories:

The right constraints: Good sketching tools provide the right limits on what you can do. Twitter’s constraints go beyond the obvious character count. Low barriers: Twitter makes it easy to get started. But, crucially, it also makes it easy to finish! A social context: Twitter provides a highly interconnected context for thinking. Should we be worried it takes it too far?*

In general, what are the right constraints for a sketching tool? I think this question is deeper than it seems at first glance.

Overall, it seems that we want constraints that help keep us on track with fluid thought, but don’t rule out too many interesting possibilities. Considering both of these criteria together is a subtle balancing act, and I don’t see easy answers.

low barrier to finishing. On Twitter, a single sentence is a completely acceptable unit of publication. Anything beyond that is sort of a bonus. In contrast, most of my blog posts go unpublished because I fear they’re not complete

I believe that quantity leads to quality. The students who make more pots in ceramics class improve faster than the students who obsess over making a single perfect pot.

Writing a blog can feel like a lonely one-way mirror: release something into the world, maybe get a few comments back and some Hacker News snark. In contrast, Twitter is a bazaar, buzzing with activity.

At its best, this engagement leads to the kind of back-and-forth that characterizes my favorite kinds of sketching sessions. Ideas are in the air, it’s not clear where they came from really, they combine to form new ones in realtime.