the art of writing

The novelist Jennifer Egan says, “You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly. You can’t write regularly and well. One should accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.”

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Writing is an efficiency game. Whoever says the most stuff in the fewest words wins.

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Make your writing concise. Concise does not mean short. It means a high density of value to words.

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Everyone should write. Why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of. This means they’re also unaware of the value of their ideas, and this value can... See more

On writing about what you know, via Robert Pirsig (1974 interview):

Write about what you know. And he said, if you write about what you know and you do it carefully and sincerely and make sure it's really what you know, that'll be plenty exotic to everybody else in this book. I've really tried to do that, and I've tried to justify what I've done to

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Writing online gives you access to near infinite leverage. But writing also forces you to find stillness and face your own inner world. It teaches you to accept that you are but one voice in the world’s choir. It teaches acceptance and equanimity in the face of temporary defeat.

Whenever I have a bad writing day, I take a peek at Kafka's diary.