Writing is a must for everyone. And not all of it needs to be published.
I consider myself a beginner with writing, so I’ve put together this beginner’s guide to writing online based on my failed experiments, reading and learning.
“I can’t write” is like saying “I can’t think”. We develop a mental block with writing because we misunderstand the meaning or the purpose of writing.
For a long time, I believed that if you couldn’t write in flowery language, describe a story vividly and be free of grammatical mistakes, you shouldn’t publish your writing. This unrealistic expectation still stops me from writing on occasions.
Writing is self-therapy, brainstorming and self-expression all rolled into one.
I have to remind myself of this every day, that the benefits of writing are enormous.
The inner critic, the unrealistic expectation and misunderstood need for writing are often why most don’t do it. I want to argue that writing, like reading, is a must for everyone. It is essential for personal growth.
And in this post, I hope to convert the self-doubters and uninformed that writing is an important life skill. If you’re an entrepreneur, even more so.
No, I’m not going to say you have to publish 1 post every day or read 100 books in a year to be successful. Do what works for you. I tried the #100blogposts challenge and failed.
Not all writing is published or needs to be published.
The first objective of writing is self-care. The second is to achieve clarity with your thinking. And if what you write for yourself can benefit one other person, then you share it.
Writing for yourself and writing for others to read
The easiest way to pick up writing is journaling. I started this daily practice a year ago called Morning Pages. Pick a pen and a book, write down your thoughts for 3 pages non-stop. Anything goes, no holds barred. No pressure, no rules and certainly no editing of words or thoughts. This is called stream of consciousness writing.
This simple act of writing down everything that’s in your mind helps unclog your mind. You feel lighter. It’s a strange but good feeling to have as you start the day. And the more you do it, you start to see the benefits of it.
Journaling gets you into the habit of turning the thoughts in your head into words on paper. To be able to turn those thoughts into words and words into action is a superpower.
So I look at journaling as the first step towards building a writing habit. It’s like toddlers learning to crawl, exploring the world around them and being fascinated with their discoveries.
Unless you’re a professional writer, you don’t write for others, you write for yourself first. Even when you decide to share your writing.
Once you get into the habit of journaling, you get used to the idea of setting aside time to write. This was an important realization for me. I now schedule an additional hour or more every day (I try) and write on topics that interest me and what I’m currently reading or working on.
I tried to publish 100 consecutive blog posts last year and I failed. The difference between writing every day and publishing every day is vastly different. The former is doable and I’ve managed to journal consistently. The latter I realize differs from people to people. Some are able to publish every day, but what is not visible behind the finished article is the process involved. 100 days of journaling is a better starting goal.
I believed for the longest time that writing was a one-time effort and with some editing, you could publish it live. All done in one sitting, maybe two. However, learning this the hard way and also reading about it has made me realize that this is an iterative process.
Each piece of writing is like building a product. You don’t build a finished product in one sprint. It develops over time, it needs iterations, changes, etc. Writing to publish follows a similar pattern. You go from an idea you want to write about, outline it, expand on it and then iterate. When you cut out all the fluff, the writing is ready to go live.
The writing rules don’t apply while writing.
They apply while editing. The structure, grammar, transition words, avoiding adverbs and filler words etc. These are applied after you’ve written your first draft.
The different stages of the writing process
Step 1: The first step is to put out the first ugly draft as Ann Handley calls it. This is an uncensored dump of all your thoughts related to this topic.
This could be a vomit of all your ideas or it could be in the form of an outline. Bullet points of all the major ideas or arguments.
The former is when a topic is an exploration, an area you are still learning of. The latter makes sense when you know the subject well and you can identify the sub-topics clearly.
The science-fiction in non-fiction
Exploring ideas, connecting them, teasing them out, contemplating consequences and pre-conditions for them to work is fiction. They don’t necessarily have to be true. We’re in the realm of exploring possibilities, so why rule out ideas or subconsciously constrain yourself when writing the first draft.
Science fiction is based on some truths, but it’s not reality.
The first draft is also based on internalised truths, but the ideas you are exploring is not necessarily reality, could be impractical, absurd etc.
Step 2: In the next step of reviewing what you wrote in the first draft, look for and add counter-intuitive and counter-narrative points. Points that get people’s attention.
Synthesising your thoughts into fewer words but still being able to communicate the same thing makes it easy for the reader – more value in lesser time. This round of rewriting and editing is to sharpen your points, add additional points and make your hook stronger.
As you do this, there are parts where you are uncertain or need to read up more on, especially if you are writing on a topic you are still learning about. Highlight these “to be filled out” spaces.
Schedule a separate session to explore the holes, find information, make notes and fill in the blanks.
Julian Shapiro has an excellent thread on writing if you suffer from procrastination.
Step 3: In the next round of drafting, as Julian says, you need to work on making your ideas stick. To make them stick you have 3 tools:
- Stories – personal anecdotes, fiction. Look at the past experiences that you can write about. This makes the writing unique because your experiences are unique. This is the flavour that reflects your life and experiences.
- Analogies – find metaphors and analogies as ways to explain your point. Analogies are a powerful way to communicate ideas. They use a familiar mental model that the reader is aware of to explain a new concept that they’re unfamiliar with. Old bottle, new wine.
- Examples – data and case studies can be used to buttress your arguments. During your research session where you might enter into one of the many internet rabbit holes reading and exploring related topics, make notes and bookmark interesting facts you discover. And then when you come back to the post, you can add it to points that support or contrast what you’re saying.
Step 4: It’s finally time to let the grammar dogs out of the kennel. You’ve been holding them back from trying to correct spellings, grammar and flow so far. You must also cage the demons along with the dogs. The self-censoring, overly critical demons that won’t let you explore new boundaries because they’re scared.
I use Grammarly at this stage to iron out the kinks.
When you get to this stage without having self-censored or worried about the grammar, you will be surprised with what you’ve written. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Not everyone is proficient in English and this is not GRE or SAT exam. So use the tools available online like Grammarly, Hemingway app etc to help you correct grammatical issues in your writing.
Once this is done, you can apply some writing rules to make your writing more efficient. I have a list of rules here that you can look at and which I now use during my editing.
“writing well is part habit, part knowledge of some fundamental rules, and part giving a damn”
Ann Handley, Everybody Writes
Easy To Follow Writing Rules From ‘Everybody Writes’
- Avoid using the following phrases: According to… There is a… It is [important, critical, advised, suggested, and so on]… In my opinion… The purpose of this [email, post, article] is… In 2014 [or any year]… I think [believe] that…
- Trim word bloat. Sub in single words for phrases (some samples: sub although for despite the fact that; when or in for when it comes to; when or at times for there will be times when; remains for continues to be; and about or regarding for in regard
- Ditch adverbs unless they are necessary to adjust the meaning.
- Ditch the weak verbs in favour of stronger ones.
- Create transitions between paragraphs.
- Short sentences and short paragraphs. (Try reading a long sentence with many commas and conjunctions and you’ll see how tiring it is.)
- Don’t aim for perfection (Hardest to follow)
