Writing about writing
I talked to another fellow from my Climatebase cohort today about the practice of writing, and afterward thought it would be a nice exercise to write about what we talked about. They were curious about how to approach longer form writing (blogs and articles), both concepting and the actual writing part, so we talked from that perspective.
Getting ready to write:
Keep a journal. Just a personal one. Write in it most days, it doesn’t need to be long or deeply reflective. Write down whatever is at the front of your mind. I like to do this first thing in the morning before my head gets busy. It works to get the words flowing and my brain into a more expressive state. It also has the emotional benefit of taking difficult thoughts out of your head and depositing them somewhere else.
Keep an idea list. Themes, questions, curiosities. Think of it like a bank of ideas when you need one. I keep mine in a Keep note, it’s just a list. If I have a few sentences knocking around in my brain when I think of it I’ll write those down too. This is nice because then you’re not starting with a blank page when you finally come back to the idea.
Warm up for writing like you’d warm up to exercise or do creative work. I love finding a flow state when I’m writing, but I can’t just enter that at will. So I’ll find some thing I need to write for, like a progress report or even an email to get going. I have stage-setting rituals that I use too, like listening to certain albums (Radiohead Kid A and Amnesiac, anything from Emily King… they are very random).
And a few other thoughts on approaching writing:
Audience first. Most writing, especially in business, should focus on the audience. What do they need and care about? How will what you write bring value to them? Reaching people is the goal. Other forms of writing, like fiction, nonfiction or journalism, may not need as much audience focus but will still need some. I am actually curious if there are resources for how to do this more intentionally and effectively, so send them my way.
Document your professional identity. Yes, your professional mission statement. There’s a reason almost every company and organization has one, and you should too. It can change over the years, not too often though (I’d plan to keep it for at least five years).
Never write alone. Ok, I’m not going to send this to anyone to read before I publish it. But for anything of consequence, I always send it to a friend or colleague for at least a proofread, and a “is this clear/interesting?" Think of it as an iteration that’s part of the process, rather than a judgement. Comments and feedback always improve my writing.
Sleep on it. Similar to the previous thought, I don’t send/share/publish when I think something is done. I wait a night, or even a few days, and come back for a fresh read. I almost always catch at least a typo, or a subpar word choice, and I can usually find and rewrite the places where I was unresolved or unclear. Or add a stray idea that finally crossed my brain. You know how you always think of the perfect thing to say to someone after the moment has happened? It’s like that.
And over the years I have come to understand that writing is a deeply expressive and sometime difficult process. You want to take this thesis/idea/story out of your body and document it into existence. It’s hard!
John McPhee is one of the seminal writers of his generation, and my favorite writer of all time (I wrote my college essay about him, because I’ve been a writing nerd for a long time). He wrote about his writing process in Draft No. 4, relating a time where he lay on the picnic table in his garden for two weeks paralyzed by the thought of writing a piece for The New Yorker. Remember that next time you’re struggling with writing, it’s not just you.