by Roberto Zoia
Cory Doctorow and the urge to write:
I’m the coeditor and co-owner of a website called Boing Boing, and I’ve spent the past ten years writing about ten blog posts a day, every day. I often find myself unable to think about anything in any depth without writing a blog post about it to check whether I understand it sufficiently to convey it to someone else.
— Cory Doctorow, Information Doesn”t Want to Be Free
Neal Stephenson writes speculative fiction. In his books, he explores subjects such as mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science.
Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can’t do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless.
— Neal Stephenson, Why I am a bad correspondent
Stephen King advises that you designate someone you know, you trust, and whom you think represents the audience of your work to act as “The Reader.” Then, write for that person. They don’t even have to know that you’re doing this. In his case, it’s his wife, and she eventually does read his drafts, but he always keeps her in mind when writing and directs everything he creates at her.
— Gareth Branwyn, How to Be a Better Writer
Keeping a journal of your thoughts on anything (not just the daily details of your life) or engaging in good online conversations are great ways of learning how to write with freedom and immediacy. You’ll be surprised how much turns out to be usable material.
— Gareth Branwyn, How to Be a Better Writer
I will write content that will stands the test of time.
I will write about what’s important to me and not based on metrics.
Outline. Then Write it. Then make it beautiful. Then make it shorter. Then publish.
(Photo credits: Aaron Burden on Unsplash.)
From Ryan Holiday’s Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts:
People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds. They want to make something timeless, but they focus instead on immediate payoffs and instant gratification. (…)
We focus on all the wrong metrics for measuring our success and, in the process, actually diminish our chances for longevity. Making a beloved classic that lasts for a hundred years may seem like a tall order. Fine, put that aside. What if we start by just trying to make something that lasts longer than average? (…)
We’re all selling ideas. Whatever the form, the process is the same. And if we get really good at it and we think about it the right way, our idea can sell forever, an infinite number of times. That’s the dream. To matter, to reach, to last. So let’s go get it.