Writing Well
Writing is the art of thinking clearly—on paper.
If you think clearly, you can find something worth saying.
An ideal place to start is by thinking through what bothers you most in life. Write a post to work through that issue. The best writing is often therapy that you publish for the world to learn from.
Writing is the most radical thing you can do without money.
If you have something important to say and you say it well, you send strangers down paths badly needed.
It's a disservice to others to keep thoughts to yourself. As a writer, you can change the world from your couch.
Great minds became brilliant through the act of writing.
Writing is a laxative for the mind. Great ideas emerge while writing—not before. After writing ideas down, your brain is then compelled to draw connections between them. It can’t help itself.
To write is to think with your mind's full capacity.
The most efficient way to meet interesting people is to become someone they already want to meet.
How? Do cool things and write about it. Or podcast about it. Or vlog.
When you produce content with an authentic voice, people want to meet the person behind that voice.
The Shakespeares, Twains, and Austens of the future won't emerge from the book publishing industry. They’ll come from YouTube, podcasts, and blogs.
Together, we'll deconstruct whichever topic you want to write about. You'll learn to write and rewrite your thoughts so that they're novel and resonant.
I’ll provide a cheat sheet at the end, but I recommend taking notes. Reading without note-taking is like exploring new territory without drawing a map.
This handbook is for:
In 30 minutes, you can become a remarkably better writer.
I spend thousands of hours deconstructing interesting topics. I compile my insights into free handbooks (like the one you're reading). Over a million people read them annually. Insights that don't make it into handbooks are shared on my Twitter.
I also write TechCrunch's growth marketing column, and I authored a boring programming book for Pearson Education.
You can read more about me on my about page.
If people cannot write well, they cannot think well. And if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
To read handbooks months before they're published, subscribe. I'm releasing how to play piano and argue well. You can also read my blog posts below.
