A couple of years ago, I got assigned to a couple of projects at work where I ended up writing a lot of code and scripts. I didn’t know a lot of the commands I needed off the top of my head, so often I wrote what we called pseudo-code before writing real code. Pseudo-code isn’t real code that a computer can understand, but rather a summary of what you want the code to do. For example, if I were quickly sketching out what I needed a script to do, I might write something like “do SQL database query here,” and then later go back and replace that with working code<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are times when I have time to write but don’t feel like writing. Sometimes, during those times, I end up pseudo-writing. For example, last night, I wrote the following:<\/p>\n

\nSkip takes the wheel.
\nMonica sits behind him.
\nSkip asks Monica to change seats.
\n“Jumpy much?”
\n“It’s worked… up until now.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This morning, when I had a bit more energy and enthusiasm, I went back and fleshed everything out:<\/p>\n

\nSkip reflexively angled his shoulders to keep Monica from standing directly behind him. “Would you mind moving up here?” Skip asked. “I don’t like people right behind me.”<\/p>\n

Monica squeezed past Skip and sat down on the front cabin bench. “Paranoid much?”<\/p>\n

Skip stared out into the dark waves ahead. “It’s done me good,” he said, taking a quick glance at his unwelcome house guest. “Until today.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not qute Shakespeare, but you get the point. Sometimes when pseudo-writing I’ll drop notes in the text, like what the goal of the scene is or what characters are thinking or planning on doing. When I revisit those passages (or in last night’s case, pages), I’ll go back and redo everything. <\/p>\n

Another time I pseudo-write is when ideas are coming to me faster than I can write. Pseudo-writing is a good way to capture a rapid stream of ideas that you can go back and clean up (or sometimes delete) at a later date.<\/p>\n

I have no idea if other people do this or if it’s even a good idea. It’s just something I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago, I got assigned to a couple of projects at work where I ended up writing a lot of code and scripts. I didn’t know a lot of the commands I needed off the top of my head, so often I wrote what we called pseudo-code before writing real code. Pseudo-code isn’t real code that a computer can understand, but rather a summary of what you want the code to do. For example, if I were quickly sketching out what I needed a script to do, I might write something like “do SQL database query here,”… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9257,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/9257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}