A great way to start as a writer is to begin with the discipline of observe and record , with no intention of sharing. Once you’ve built momentum you can start writing publishable material.

But that’s only about a third of what I’ve written. The rest is invisible. Why? Because it’s dirt.

“Dirt” doesn’t mean bad compositions. It means most of my writing is not composition. It’s random thoughts, or notes to myself, or explorations into my interests. My rule is to listen to my brain — if it wants to write nothing but to-do lists for two... See more

if you’re paralyzed by your internal editor, try adopting a persona so ridiculous that you can’t edit it. When I was paralyzed as an undergraduate I would write a “stoner draft” — my goal was to write a draft that sounded like it was dictated into a cell phone by a surf rat hopped up on ganja. There was no way to write an A+ paper in the middle of... See more

Meta-Writing. This refers to any writing that externalizes my thoughts so that I can sift through them. At least half of my writing is meta-writing. It’s refreshingly mundane; I write goals, plans, tasks, observations, and daydreams. I write to purge noise when my brain is too loud and to make noise when my brain is too quiet. It’s too mundane to... See more