Quick Easy Wins

Building a framework for writing stories.

Taylor Orwell nails it in his recent Laravel Snippet podcast. In that episode Taylor, creator of the Laravel PHP framework, responded to the question, "Should I learn PHP first, before learning Laravel?"

He likened it to a child learning to speak. The child doesn't start out learning gerunds or verbs--they just start talking. It's only later that they start figuring out the concepts behind their words.

And the same should apply to coding.

I love that.

It made me think of my app Subtxt and how it's a "cheat" for writing a story. You don't start out learning Acts, and Catalysts, and Story Prerequisites--you start by writing and short-cutting your way to a final product.

And with Subtxt—a framework for writing stories—you can get to that outcome even faster.

You can literally sit down with Subtxt, click on the ending you want, type in your character's names, and in minutes find yourself presented with a complete and meaningful outline for your story.

Taylor calls them quick and easy wins. Instant gains that build momentum and give you the drive to strive for more.

And he's right.

I used Laravel to build Subtxt, and I had a working prototype in weeks. I hadn't even written a line of code in over 30 years (took a slight detour to become an animator), yet the framework was so intuitive that I was able to build exactly what I wanted in no time.

I was shocked at how quickly what was in my head ended up in the “cloud,” ready for everyone to use.

And it motivated me to do more and more. To learn VueJS. And relationships. And a whole host of other techniques that keep building on top of each other.

Quick, easy wins.

For me, and my customers. The feedback for Subtxt has been nothing but positive and my user base continues to grow each and every month. One writer, a former head of the English department at a major university, wished he had Subtxt around when he was teaching creative writing.

That’s a huge win.

Built from many quick and easy wins.

For the makers in the world, foundations are a matter of consequence—not a means to an end.

And I’m happy to be a part of that crowd.