5 ms·
Go Away: Artist colonies are mysterious places (2012)
- convFixb 7y agoLovely. This kind of article always ignites some obscure desire to become a professional writer, even though I would probably be crap at it :)
- moretai 7y agoIt irks me like when people describe burning man.
- floren 7y agoThe only way to know if you'd be crap is to try writing. Short stories are a fun place to start, just pick a genre you like and give it a shot. Like everything else, it takes practice and your first few attempts will be crap. Advice: don't spend any time on writing forums or subreddits, they're full of people who'd rather talk about writing than actually do it, but despite all their theorizing they still can't turn out a decent page.
- CamperBob2 7y agoThe only way to know if you'd be crap is to try writing. Short stories are a fun place to start, just pick a genre you like and give it a shot. It's enough to simply read the right authors, or at least it was for me. You can tell if you belong in their company or not. If you can't, well... that's a strong hint in itself.
- egypturnash 7y agoFind their first published stories. Find their earlier stories, sometimes they get used to fill out a shorts collection for laughs. Then ask yourself if you belong in that company. And then ask yourself if you care, maybe you'll never write enough to have a shot at a publishing deal, much less a bestseller, but maybe you just like telling stories to yourself and maybe a few friends.
- wayneftw 7y agoAre there any colonies like this for programmers?
- Bjorkbat 7y agoThe Recurse Center kinda looks fitting https://www.recurse.com/ https://www.recurse.com/ I'm not sure though, I haven't tried it myself. Anyone who's been care to chime in?
- danharaj 7y agoI know at least a dozen RCers. Very smart people all getting together in one spot to hack on things and learn, and then it's an extensive support network for your career for life. Pretty nice. If I take a long break from full time work I would definitely do a batch.
- floren 7y agoI've occasionally thought it would be interesting to have a place where programmers and other people involved in "knowledge work" could live and work half of each day at intellectual tasks and spend the other half in physical labor to support themselves. So you get up and milk the cows, then go write some code, then later in the afternoon hoe the corn. I get most of my best thinking done when I'm doing a repetitive task like washing the dishes or maintaining the lawn, anyway.
- rtkwe 7y agoIt'd be hard because manual labor isn't that profitable, farms are so mechanized for a reason and that's because machines are better and more consistent than migrant workers who get paid very little and work way more than half a day. Manual labor on farms mostly exists in a few areas where mechanization hasn't happened yet like berry picking, etc.
- floren 7y agoYou're not doing it to make money from the farming, you're doing it to grow fresh food for yourself and the other people there. Presumably your actual income would come from contracting or remote work, although part of the idea of raising your own food is so you don't need as much income.
- jdkee 7y agoObligatory My Dinner with Andre reference: https://www.findhorn.org/ https://www.findhorn.org/