10/07/00
You have 4 cools left today. You have 71 votes left today. You gained experience! You have 139 writeups until level 8.

Ever since I started noding, I have never gotten close to the next level without it taking me a really long time. Even when I was eager to get to whatever level gives me a homenode image, it still took me several weeks to get there. Part of this is because I do not use a computer as part of my job and so when I do use it, it's very clear that I'm goofing on the job. Since I like and appreciate my boss, I don't like goofing on the job and/or getting caught.

This may also be due to the nature of most of my noding. I'm not very good at finding facts, noding lyrics or poems (at least since my daily poems have been regularly downvoted so I've stopped), or even noding short paragraphs. My nodes are generally long drawn out commentaries about my life or the observations from my life, few of which can quickly be clattered out and none of which can really be rushed in an effort to gain XP.

I don't node to get XP. I node because it's a cool place to display my writing. I node for me, to get the thoughts out. While I don't care about gaining XP, I do care about writing well and with focus and accuracy. So I take my time. I choose my words. I am always going to be 100 or more write ups to the next level, and that's fine with me. I'm in no hurry, and it gives me something to shoot for by default instead of it being my focus.