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ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  1mo ago (text post)   382 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for August 26, 2025

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service

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In On Writing, Stephen King outlined his writing process in broad strokes:

  1. Get the first draft down on paper as quickly as possible while the idea is fresh in your mind, aiming for 2,000 words a day.
  2. Leave it for six weeks.
  3. Read over your first draft, ideally in one sitting.
  4. Revise the first draft into a second draft.
  5. Allow one or more people you trust to read the second draft.
  6. Using their feedback, revise the second draft into a "polish" (or third draft, depending on how you look at it).

My girlfriend finished reading the second draft of my NaNoWriMo project, and rated it somewhere between a 6.5 or 7 out of 10. She confirmed that it was never boring or cringe, often very entertaining to read and emotionally affecting in places. She had two major criticisms which I'm taking seriously, and a couple of smaller criticisms and suggestions. Work now continues on the "polish", or third draft.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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