Safety Fork, the

I’ve been playing Sim City 4 this evening, using my drawing tablet instead of my mouse. It seems to be a very compelling input metaphor for the game; the whole premise of the game is basically drawing a fictitious city on the screen. It would be neat to try it sometime on a tablet computer, so that I could use the pen directly on the screen.

It also made me reconsider what Steve Jobs said in his iPhone presentation about nobody wanting to use a stylus. While I think there’s something to be said for using a touch-based interface on a pocket telephone—the whole idea is to be able to pull it out and quickly do something simple—I also think that for more general purposes a pen offers an increase of precision so useful as to be indispensable. We’re not writing letters, taking notes, and drawing up blueprints with finger paints (at least when we’re not also five years old). If there is a future for large, usable digital surfaces—and I expect there is—I predict that some kind of pen will be involved.

I believe in the power of the first sentence.

Believe me or not, I have a lot more crazy ideas than I ever end up writing about. Back when I carried a PDA, I used to keep a special file on it for taking down crazy ideas. My mind is like a sieve; ideas may cascade like water off the broccoli of my brain, but they leak right out my ears unless I have somewhere to catch them. These days it’s a white board on my apartment wall.

But remembering that I have an idea is only the first step. Ideas take time—a gestation period—some ideas more, some less. If I don’t give an idea enough time, I can’t put it to words that don’t sound dumb or incoherent even to me, and even though they’re trying to be words for an idea I already know I like. The bad pun you are not expecting only takes a few seconds; just long enough that you’ll have to reach back to get it. The power of the first sentence has taken a lot longer. It wasn’t until I was reading something Holly wrote that these paragraphs came to term.

The first sentence is the filter on my mental output. When I can write the first sentence, I know that an idea is ready for words. I know that I have summoned at least enough succinctness to avoid being tedious, even if I don’t produce the eloquence to which I aspire. I know that I stand a decent chance of engaging your attention long enough to convey something for your consideration, amusement, or to whatever end I am writing.

I believe in the power of the first sentence because it’s the only sentence I can assume you will read.