In fact, the single most productive writer I worked with was also the absolute worst to read on a word-by-word basis. He was also one of the most successful in his career. The trick was combing through his masses of thought-assault to identify out the good bits and fix the mediocre bits (obviously, throwing away the bad bits). I always got a chuckle out of how the end readers had no idea how much of the original writing was schlock, but his success was fully deserved on many other levels.
So in short: recognize that what you're experiencing is totally normal and acceptable, and work to your strengths. Write your crappy stuff that nobody wants to read and then fix it. If you can't fix it -- then editing is what you need to work hard on improving (and editing ≠ writing).
This. For many years I though I had to write like I read, that the words had to be perfect the first time -- like you are used to read. But the finished work is nothing like the first draft. Just write, don't stop even to fix typos. Never stop the flow. Then, once you have dumped your brain into words, leave it for a while and come back to do the editing later.
Like Stephen King also mentioned in his book (on Writing): write the first draft with the door closed, and the second with the door open. The first draft is for you, the second is for an audience (of selected people).
I wrote a quick blog post about it a while back: https://blog.torh.net/2022/06/14/writing-is-hard/
I like having a record of my thinking. I read a travel journal I wrote some time ago, and it painted a much more faithful picture of my trip than dozens of photos. I had a good chuckle at some passages, and at my doodles in the margins.
I also write in public, mostly to share solutions, but occasionally to share my thoughts. I've shared a few posts here and loved the ensuing discussion. Some people have reached out because they somehow came across a post I wrote. It's cool to help a guy from Tennessee change his break pads, or to meet a guy from Berlin because he thinks we'd get along (we do).
In the end, I write for the sake of writing. It's like practicing guitar. I have no dream of being a rockstar; I just enjoy the process. However, doing things in public occasionally bears fruit in the most unexpected ways.
Write these down and sharpen them. Share them with friends and get their feedback.
This removes the problem of what to write, which can be daunting as a new writer. And you may end up discovering something new in these old conversation pieces!
(1) It's a function of audience. I am writing on Medium with moderate success (~1.4K followers, prior top 5% of business writers worldwide), and I noticed that content discovery on the platform is just broken. The same applies to Twitter.
(2) In 2022, we are competing with content farms that drown out smaller "creators" ...start to hate that word.
It used to be true, that I would write an article about Apple's product launch and gathered 40K views. Not anymore.
But then, I am now mostly on Youtube for content consumption. So I guess, that makes me part of the problem.
For me, the hardest problem is even getting the word out. I’ve used a few different platforms to get my book in front of people. And by and large, the ones who start it also finish it. But even giving away content, it is surprisingly hard to connect to an audience of any size.
Pick any kind of writing, and you’ll find the marketplace is incredibly crowded. There is so much content vying for a finite set of eyeballs. And it’s not just other writers; you’re competing with all other uses of leisure time: Netflix, Fortnite, Twitter, TikTok, hell, even Tinder
I think you have to enjoy writing because it scratches your own itch. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll attract a few like-minded followers. If you’re hoping for a more sizable audience, you’d better enjoy marketing.
Things I've heard writers / bloggers / etc. in my life say about writing:
- There is no magic bullet; you just have to practice, practice, practice and be willing to throw away large sections or even entire drafts. Most people, including famous authors, write large volumes of crap. - If you're explicitly looking for an audience, you have to test with that audience! Get feedback early and often, and use that feedback to improve what (and how) you write. (If you have any product / design / UX training, you'll notice how similar this advice is to best practices in those fields!)
(On the second point: using Notion, Google Docs, or any other tool that gives you an easily shared link and allows inline commenting is a great way to get useful feedback!)
It doesn't pay the rent, but one can't deny the quantitative validation of imaginary Internet points.
Also, you might try distributing your writing more widely - not to promote it, but to get feedback. Find alternate distribution channels.
I am new to astro and enjoy reading Jim Kaler's writing which has a lasting effect on me.
Now, I'm making all of my income from technical writing.
Consistency is key. With that said, less is more.
Stephen King said, he writes 6 pages a day, which is probably too much for most people. But one page a day should be doable.
https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thril...
I read Casino Royale (the first Bond installment) for the first time last week; it's quite good and fast-paced. The chapters follow the 2000 words rule quite closely, and it's working.
Stephen King answers basically with the same advice he's always given, as you said, he tries to write 6 pages a day.
In the video, he says he tries to get 3-4 hours of work a day, and get to that 6 pages. He breaks it down, "if the manuscript is x length, it will take y months to finish." George RR Martin goes on to ask essentially, "but what if writer's block? What if internet distraction? What if something comes up?"
He goes on to tell a story about Rowling that basically resolves with "nobody really understands what writers do," but based on King's own "On Writing," I think he does claim to understand, and his tips are not really any different from how you generate content in any other medium, methods that those of us terminally online HN types are at this point experts via headlines alone, we see so many posts on the subject.
The method is demonstrated in the "6 pages" quote that gets thrown around: define the objective (write a book), break the objective into estimable and achievable goals (write 6 pages a day: this allows for book length x to be finished in y months), and set dedicated, distraction-free time to achieve the day's goal (as I recall from "On Writing," King has a dedicated writing office and doesn't bring his phone into it, and doesn't have internet access in there. I may be remembering incorrectly or mixing up my absurd breadth of reading I've done on the general topic of staying focused).
Meanwhile GRRM, for all his undeniable success, talent, and skill, talks about the act of writing in kinda the same way an amateur might, or maybe just the way an artist might, a sort of mystical "waiting for the muse" type style. "What if I just don't wanna write?"
King's answer, and the answer of many prolific artists, programmers, etc, that I've read, would be "why are you whether you want to write or not? You have today's goal already, so, achieve it." The wanting is irrelevant, the muse is unneeded, you've broken down the task, go do today's TODO list. Are you going to re-justify for yourself every single day the overall objective? Well, tbh, I do like that as a mindfulness self-affirmation exercise sometimes, but the point is you can't just sit around waiting to want to do the small part of the larger objective, you gotta just put the hours in day after day.
I think a lot of us across all disciplines are missing that key skill in production: project management, I think I'd call it. The most prolific artists are the ones who grabbed that skill and added it to the toolset as a discipline-agnostic ability. Hence why when King talks about his method it sounds the same to me as what I've read here from programmers, what I've seen on youtube from animators, and what I've heard on podcasts from musicians.
It’s basically that distinction between a Pro and an Amateur that you are making. The Pro sits down and does the work, the Amateur waits till they feel like it.
I wonder though if there is a reluctance to adopt an approach similar to King's because people are wary (possibly subconsciously) of killing their enjoyment of the process: 'Don't turn your hobby into a job' is advice that you hear a lot.
Perhaps those who are prolific have their eyes more on the end result (a good book in 3 months) rather than the act of writing and that helps them deal with this as well as being more generally motivating to produce good work.
I just wrote and wrote and wrote and one day companies approached me to pay me for articles.
Later, I worked with editors and tried to learn from what they edited in my articles.
It helped me to be more concise (which I need —badly).
I have no problem at all, writing a lot of words. The challenge, for me, is writing fewer words.
You can use it to track and graph numeric data, too. If you have something in the following format in your entries, it will get added as post metadata:
MY_METRIC: 12345
WEIGHT: 226 pounds
Also 750 doesn't have the same prompt feature.
Seems like a valuable addition to me.
I just tried it out but got the error when I tried to save a draft: "Argument schedule for data.prompt.create.schedule must not be null. Please use undefined instead." — this is from starting off of the tutorial, and trying to hit save.
I'd love to be able to support this. I'd also love to be able to export my text.
Monthly support: https://buy.stripe.com/5kA5kn2jd8XV39m144
One time support: https://buy.stripe.com/00gaEH3nhdebfW83cd
Slightly OT (but not by much): I have read somewhere that one secret to write more is to stop in the middle of something -- if fiction, in the middle of a scene, if non-fiction, in the middle of a demonstration or exposition for example.
The rationale is that the brain 1/ hates starting new things and 2/ loves finishing. So if you stop in the middle, you will absolutely want to finish the next day, whereas if you finish, you will not want to start a new scene and you may postpone going back to work indefinitely.
Now for the disclaimer, I have tried this but never actually succeeded, and in effect I'm stuck in the finish/hard to start again mode. I'm also afraid I won't remember what I was trying to say, but the main problem is the desire to finish proves too hard to resist. YMMV.
1. I spend a large majority of my day reading or writing text. Emails, documentation, white papers, comments in code, Slack messages, texts, PowerPoint. The absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is write more.
2. I type fast and can churn out like a thousand words no problem. It is significantly harder to a) pick an interesting topic and b) form a thought that is coherent, accessible, interesting, and overall worth reading.
I imagine people who do this spend years writing stuff that nobody (not even themselves) cares to read
Good idea or bad idea?
I would find it useful for that exact purpose, however, I think 500 words might be too much. 150-200 is good enough. Would be cool to be able to change the amount of words required.
I write it usually in the afternoon or evening, so it's fun for me to think of things throughout the day or jot them down as a prompt and crank out the 500 words later in the day.
I think that this is about as secure as it could be beyond letting users generate and store their own encryption keys.
- [ ] [[slop/2023-01-04]]
and I go into that and close my eyes and just type stream of consciousness, sometimes about a certain subject, and without editing, until I get to 500 words. It helps to get the flow going with little pressure on doing it right. I call it slop to emphasize that none of it is going to be good.
Cool app to help build a habit of writing.
I can relate. Essentially, it's a journal. I find journalling to be very healthy for my mind and have journaled online and offline for most of my adult life. Though, I must admit, I don't do it everyday. Personally, I find doing something artistic daily to be the most fulfilling. Whether drawing, writing, playing music, or whatever, it allows me to reap the benefits of exercising those creative muscles.
The part about writing a few pages when you wake up is a good idea, IMO. Not that it needs to be a daily structured routine, but what you experience sleeping is a unique experience that is worth writing down, occasionally. I've reflected on earlier journals I wrote when I woke up and have been surprised to read something I almost didn't recognize as my own.
ChatGPT: Ok, here is an essay…
You could populate the tracker from people's comments, maybe.
May I kindly suggest that you consider displaying the word count while the user types in their text?