Reflections on Writing, Grinding, and Money

Work is a waste of my time. The things that I’m best at, that I get the most benefit from, and see the most big-picture results from, don’t feel like work.

I’m not entirely sure if writing counts as “work,” but if it does I work a lot. But it’s not a be-seen-in-your-seat-at-7am kind of work; it’s a background process. Probably 10% of my topic and conclusion sentences are things I type up wearing only a towel because I wrote them in the shower. If your work is not something you find deeply engaging and... See more

As a lower bound, you have to like your work more than any unproductive pleasure. You have to like what you do enough that the concept of "spare time" seems mistaken. Which is not to say you have to spend all your time working. You can only work so much before you get tired and start to screw up. Then you want to do something else—even something mi... See more

Many of us are wired to look at work as something that should produce monetary rewards. Or at least with writing, some amount of attention, or new followers. But on the internet, sustained attention may take years to materialize, if at all. And too many people are focused on short-term followers instead of the genuine credibility that can come from... See more

I love work, by which I mean I love the feeling of focusing my energy toward a particular goal and watching the nebulous mist between here and there slowly thin to reveal wobbly, winding stepping stones. I love the satisfaction of a certain type of exhaustion that comes from having pitted my brain and my hands against a problem and found myself a l... See more

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 mig... See more