Now, I don’t know about you, but I would be very interested to check out memoirs beginning with "The hardest thing is to start. Really, where did it all begin... Maybe from the day we met? Or much earlier?" There's something captivating about the unpolished honesty of these words — the exact opposite of those overconfident journalistic hooks that... See more

approach writing not as an intellectual operation but as capturing your personal emotional experience.

— how I already feel about the matter;

— exactly the thought that popped into mind while the cursor was blinking;

— why I suddenly paused to think during writing;

— how I would say it to a friend;

— every doubt, emotion or personal opinion;

— and so on.

I'm hoping you'll feel that you too could approach writing not as an intellectual operation but as capturing your personal emotional experience.

But the process of writing — especially writing a first draft — should resemble quickly sketching what’s inside your mind, not squeezing words out of yourself.

But the process of writing — especially writing a first draft — should resemble quickly sketching what’s inside your mind, not squeezing words out of yourself.

If you write quickly, and don’t worry much about writing well, the quality of your writing will improve.”