Seven things this blog taught me about writing
As Hemingway is reported to have said, “It is easy to write. Just sit in front of your typewriter and bleed.” Internally, of course. On the outside, all that is visible is cold sweat and a distracted air. – William C. Knott, The Craft of Fiction
As I mentioned earlier, my writing experiment has been wildly successful: not only have I been more productive than ever before, but I also had plenty of fun along the way.
On top of that, I’ve learned a couple of things about writing which I thought worth sharing with you here:
- Writing is an activity I enjoy, but only if I can take my time. In the past, I tried to write each article in one go, usually because I procrastinated until the last possible moment. As a result, I felt constant pressure to move on, even if I didn’t like what I had written. Nowadays, I will just stop and search for the right words, even if that takes me a while. With the pressure gone, I started to enjoy searching for the right words. But I had to accept that writing is an activity that takes time and can’t be rushed.
- Too much preparation is just another form of procrastination. I used to believe that activities like freewriting, making outlines, or collecting ideas for articles would help me make progress on my writing goal. However, I noticed that occasionally I would spend hours on these activities, without making any progress whatsoever. Now I understand that to publish my writing, I actually need to commit at least some words to paper every day.
- Writing is a discovery and comprehension technique. Most of my articles begin with a vague idea of the topic I’m going to write about. But that’s about it. I usually don’t have a clear outline or list of ideas I want to convey. Instead, I begin with something I want to say, and then let the words carry me along. Along the way, I discover new ideas and begin to understand previous ones much better. I suppose that this is why people say that writing is a way to think.
- Individual words matter way less than I thought. I spent a lot of time obsessing over individual words, trying to find just the right word to express an idea. This was a great way for me to get stuck. But I came to understand that words are just parts of sentences, and that those sentences matter more than words (this is true for paragraphs, sections, full articles too). If I can’t find the right word, I usually need to rewrite the entire sentence.
- There are many ways to convey the same idea. Sometimes I really struggle to express an idea clearly. In those cases, it can help me to discard everything and begin from scratch. I’ve learned that some ideas are best conveyed by reasoning, others by stories or dialogue. Trying out these different approaches can be a lot of fun too.
- Always be writing. Although I thought otherwise, writing does not require a long stretch of uninterrupted time in front of a computer with a steaming cup of coffee. Even though that helps, I found many other ways to advance my writing: just discussing an idea with friends, thinking through an idea on a walk, or editing an article on my phone while waiting in a queue. It’s amazing how much progress I can make even in a few spare minutes of time. All that this requires is to keep my current writing project front of mind at all times.
- I need to get better at English, in particular the tenses. You probably have noticed this already, but I’m not a native speaker. Yet, I still mostly rely on my intuition when it comes to grammar. Relying on my intuition is not only error-prone though, but it also started to fail me in one area in particular: the different tenses and when to best use them. Now that I’m aware of the issue, I can look for ways to improve.
On top of that, I’ve learned one more thing (perhaps the most important one): finishing an article feels great. Being able to take an idea, think it through, and then share it with others is amazing. It’s a skill I always wanted to have, but never took the time to acquire before.