When I converted this blog from the conventional reverse-chronological ordering to something you had to follow links to get around in, like it was a dark forest and you were wandering from tree to tree, it was heavily influenced by the many people who’d done it before. Even “working with the garage door open” is borrowed. I found myself thinking again about that garage door this morning, after a month or so of heavy notes-to-myself taking as I learned the ins and outs of a number of new things at work, and it occurred to me that I ought to act on that sentiment if it resonated with me so much. So today I added a new key/value pair to post metadata called garage, where I’ll denote the status of a page according to its completeness &c. I say &c. because I think the in/out of the garage concept has more to do with than just completeness or polish; I think in a lot of ways, it comes down to intention. Something that I intended to be for public consumption from the beginning, an essay or blog post I set to write intentionally, may still be a WIP, it may be completed, or something in between, but notes that I wrote while I learned something that I never really intended to consider as a “piece of writing” doesn’t really fit in that spectrum. Anyway, here are the states I’ll be using for the garage key and what they mean:
open: you’re just seeing me work something out in the open, these are notes mostly for me, it is not something that I edited or thought about word choice or cadence or anything like that. It may not “make sense” in a narrative or continuity way, but you may find some useful nuggets of information.
closed: The garage door is closed and I’m not home, I’m out pitching this piece. Something with “garage: closed” was always intended to be for public consumption, and is—modulo the handful of typos I’m sure you’ll find—done. A piece labeled closed is more like a conventional blog post.
light on: A piece with public-facing intentions but is still a work in progress. These I don’t think you’ll find much of, but if you do it’s likely because I published to get input on, and you’re seeing the progress through the frosted glass of the garage door.
light off: A piece with public-facing intentions that was abandoned or left unfinished.