Writing

The equivalent of “breaking out of the underworld” for me in my writing is roughly “breaking out of my existing model”, or maybe even “breaking into a new ideaspace”.

It’s easier to treat writing as a low-stakes side hobby, when the reality is that writing requires us to get up-close, personal, and gut-level honest about how we are living our lives.

I simply wanted to write literature that was irrevocably, indisputably Black, not because its characters were, or because I was, but because it took as its creative task and sought as its credentials those recognized and verifiable principles ofBlack art.

What we are trying to do influences what becomes salient to us. If you are looking for a friend in a crowd, faces become salient to you, faces that would have otherwise passed you by. If you are making videos, you will notice patterns in the videos you watch. If you’re not, you can watch a thousand videos and have them pass through your head clean

What makes a purpose story work is not how clearly you can recite he sequence of events. The success of your purpose story is dependent entirely on your ability and willingness to share how you felt about these entirely events. These emotions don't have to be big. In fact, indifference is often the primary emotional state. What does need to be big-

Great writing begins with great questions.

Writing about something teaches you about what you know, what you don’t know, and how to think. Writing about something is one of the best ways to learn about it. Writing is not just a vehicle to share ideas with others but also a way to understand them better yourself.

It's the posts you spend the longest thinking about that will land the biggest splash. Not necessarily the ones you spend the longest writing. But the longest thinking about and preparing for. This post has been 6 years in the making, so I'm cautiously optimistic it'll do quite well. The longer you've spent thinking about a topic, the more you'll p