the art of writing

If you write to please others, you are selling out. You are in the process of audience capture. This way of talking, which is how the fear in me talks, is common—as if writing for an audience and writing for yourself are at odds with each other. I really used to feel like that.

But I no longer think that it is quite right. The relationship between... See more

If you really want to understand a topic, don’t read about it, write about it. The act of explaining something helps connect the dots and commit them to memory far better than the passive act of reading.

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.

Excellence is the war you wage until every trace of the struggle disappears

I think that greatness is best described as “invisibility.” Great writing is invisible. It might take you a minute or two to get into the flow, but once you’re reading it, you’re flowing through it and don’t even realize you are reading words. Your mind is hallucinating the story for you, so seamlessly that it feels like you’re imagining it for... See more