I just finished watching second season of Arcane. One of the focal moments was this Silco’s monologue. Delivered to Jinx when she’s sitting in a jail and going (even more) insane. Killing is a cycle. One that started long before Vander and me. And it will continue long after the two of you. [...] We build our own prisons. Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments. Walls of self-doubt and accepted limitation. We inhabit these cells, these identities, and call them “us.” I thought I could break free by eliminating those I deemed my jailors. But... Jinx... I think the cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away.

It wasn’t focal because it was a good monologue (it wasn’t one.) Or because it coincided with episode name/topic (episode name was mostly meaningless.) It was focal because I realized: I can’t understand it. I had to read it as text to digest it. Otherwise it was just white noise to me.

As I’ve already said, I need scrollbars to allocate attention for reading. My attention deficit is that bad. Yours is likely close to that. That’s why we all need Three Minutes Writing.

As a writer, my goal is to deliver the idea. In a form I myself can understand later. Three Minutes Writing means:

Write small paragraphs and sections.
• Add visual anchors:
  sections,
  • lists,
  • code listings,
  • quotes.
• Keep the language simple.
• Keep the scrollbar big.
• Optimize for three minutes of reading time!

My longer-form writing fails at these, and I often get comments like So chaotic writing. I try to distill the essence from this article, but it is jumping back and forth between different topics

My sweet person, I can’t focus on it either. Sorry.

So let’s all focus on Three Minutes Writing instead. We need to understand each other, right?

See also Two beat style by Lu Wilson.