Day 16 - Foundations of Writing (n.)⚡️
Committing to being the best writer I can be (⚡️BetterFriend Project Day 8 - 38)
Writing [rahy-ting]
noun.
: the act of a person or thing that writes.
: the profession of a writer.
Does every writer wake up, at some point, and realize that writing is like pushing a giant boulder up the hill without knowing where the peak is?
In fact, I think the hill gets steeper as I push, and the end is never to be seen.
After 15 days of writing, I realized that I don’t know what I’m doing.
The whole plan of “let me write on Substack, Linkedin, X and tell the world about what I’m building”, is so much harder than I thought.
I don’t know if making video is any easier, but I know for sure that writing, in many forms, has been around for longer. Which means, everywhere I look, there’s a better writer than me. Here comes the limiting beliefs again.
This time, there’s no other path. I don’t think I can make videos better than I can write, so the only path is through.
I spend the last 7 days about 60% learning how to write and editing my previous posts and 40% building BetterFriend.
In this day and age, having a beautiful product is not enough anymore.
Again - I went to look for people who have done this before that I admire.
This time, it’s not as obvious where to look. We are talking about writing here. The mankind has been writing for over 5000 years.
I was lucky to come across Nathan’s Writing content about fiction writing around 2022 and I really enjoyed his tweets.
I soon found out that he has recently switched over to Substack!
I’ve lost track of his posts for a few years as I wasn’t writing, but his content has gotten even better. I still don’t know Nathan personally but we seem to have mutual friends.
The most recent article really helped me gain more confidence in my writing:
Specifically this part where he referenced Gary Provost:
It shattered me in a good way, and I had to go back to all 14 days of stories to edit each one. Gosh how I sounded like a professor. or a textbook. Both terrible for reading.
Also grammar was tripping me up - I guess I’m just out of practice. Some of these are simply muscle memory like sports or riding a bike. I needed to nip it in the bud before the disapproving voices got louder.
Thanks Nathan!
I’ve also been spending a lot of time watching Masterclass.com.
I bought it not for writing, but for Stephen Curry’s Basketball course. I’ll share more on this on a Side-Quest story in another day.
The platform has been around for about a decade and has a ton of writer’s content to my surprise. The one that immediately caught my attention was,
Michael Lewis’s 5 hour Lesson on Writing
More about Michael here: https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Michael_Lewis
I liked his non-fiction journalism books and movies that came out of his books: “Big Short” / “MoneyBall” / “The Blind Side”.
I never actually read any of his books, but he’s now one of the writers that I admire the most.
I took some notes that were ground breaking for me:
“Sit your ass down and write” - writing requires long undisrupted time. I’ve started to pay attention to when and where I write, the noise level, keeping the phone away from me. Found a tool has been helpful for me is this FREE Pomodoro Timer
“Respect the readers time” -
I was repeating a lot. Saying the same thing in different words in 3 different ways.Explaining too much. Like what I’m doing now.“Repect the readers intellect” - 12 years of corporate speech and formal email writing made me use all sorts of big words. Not the fun kind - the corporate jargons. No one wants to feel stupid. I don’t need to feel smart. Simple words it is.
Patience - It took him 10 years to write his second book after the first. 3 years after Moneyball, he wanted to write a sequel, scrapped the entire thing after a year or so and wrote The Blind Side. Here I am trying rush to improve my writing on Substack after 15 days, and the man is dedicating YEARS on researching, refining, practicing his writing. How incredible.
Confidence to tell the truth - To put my work out in the world means I’m now taking a stance. A strong stance. If everyone agrees with my writing, then I’m clearly not adding anything unique to the world. Accepting people who disagree is easily said than done. I need to be prepared.
“Write to someone who loves you” - Start the writing journey with people who won’t judge is underrated. As of this writing I have 5 subscribers. One is my therapist. One is my brother. I haven’t shared it with anyone else, I don’t know who the other 3 people are…but this is a reminder for me to share with my friends. It’s time.
“Look where no one is looking” - Michael’s books are known to uncover details in the world that people have overlooked but are really important. It’s incredible that he’s done that over and over again in many subjects.
Learning the craft
More than ever before, I realized the commitment to write is not just for this Substack, but for my life.
Once I’m a writer, I will always be a writer. It’s like learning Spanish - I will now forever be a Spanish speaker.
What this also means is that I need to put in the work. Not days. Not months. Years.
Many years.
Many hours. When I want to write and when I don’t want to write.
Edit it again, and again, and again.
Books, Essays, Short Stories, Newsletters, Poems - the format may seem different.
The practice is the same.
“Ding Ding Ding Ding”
There’s the sound of my Pomodoro Timer - 25 minutes is up.
See you tomorrow!
(⚡️BetterFriend Project Day 8 - 38)