the art of writing

Handwriting, compared to typing, results in more complex brain connectivity patterns, enhancing learning and memory. This study used EEG data from 36 students to compare brain activity while writing by hand and typing.

Handwriting, whether in cursive on a touchscreen or traditional pen and paper, activated extensive brain regions, vital for memory... See more

You’re either writing or editing. Doing both at the same time makes both worse.

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

10 key insights from Lenny Rachitsky on building a successful newsletter: 1. What do people ask you about that you don't have a great answer to? Viral essays are hiding inside this question. If people keep asking you the same question and nobody's written the answer, take on the challenge yourself. ... See more

From George Saunders, on nuance and embracing complexity:

the writer doesn't have to have a fixed firm idea, but has to be able to take the reader on a journey to remind her that the world is complicated. From the very beginning, I understood writing to be about some kind of moral or ethical imperative. Absent that, I'm not that interested in it,

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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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