Unceremonial writing

I was listening to Cory's podcast while cycling home, and while talking about writing, he said something that resonated strongly with me. He said that the danger with writing is that you make it ceremonial, that you have to have a cigarette, or a cup of tea, or the right music playing before you write, and that it is easy to keep accumulating ceremony, until you don't get to the writing part.
That struck home, because I stripped the styling from my blog 2 months ago, and said to myself that I'd convert it to a new template with hAtom support and revamped CSS before I posted again. I had put a ceremony in the way of writing here, so I'm going to start writing again, and maybe get around to titivating the markup later. I've been reading and listening and talking a lot over the last two months, just not writing it down here, so I'm going to start doing so again.

Cory dropped by at Google a couple of weeks back, and gave a very thoughtful talk on the future of copyrights and politics.

Also, his new novel "Little Brother" is a splendid blend of polemic, practical advice on information security and a rollicking tale with characters you can believe in, where he takes his "science fiction is imagining the present" idea to heart and gives a series of recipes for culture clashing. Cory has made writing habitual and frequent. I'll try to do so too.