Ben Crowder / About

What I’m doing now

This is a now page, last updated February 27, 2024.

Reading

Still aiming to read at least 100 pages per day. Lately I’ve been trying to read more old books, particularly nonfiction (history, biography, travel).

Writing

Nonfiction: Continuing to blog. Also slowly writing some essays on creativity which I plan to publish as a book.

Fiction: Trying to figure out how to make outlining work for me so I can write novellas without losing heart halfway through. Also thinking about writing some kids’ books (retelling fairy tales, quirky bedtime poems, a picture book or two). Mostly thinking about how writing fiction is the hardest thing for me to stick with.

Art

Continuing to make symbolic religious art. I want to also start making other kinds of art, like I used to. Not sure yet if that’ll be fine art or little illustrations or what.

Coding/research

Experimenting with ebook reading — things like paper EPUB, for example. Also thinking about little VMs and DSLs. Doing frontend engineering by day at Planet.

Design/typesetting

Planning to typeset some more old books after I’ve read through a handful. Also thinking about writing a script to programmatically typeset family photo yearbooks.

Language study

Brushing up on Old English. Not putting much time into it, though.