✍️ #239 - A Better Way to Write
Or, when we need guidance to break out of our habits
Let’s think about craft—The How of writing.
Maybe you don’t understand why things seem to just click for your writing sometimes, but not others. Perhaps you’re in a slump, and you want to try something to shake things up. Or it could be that you’re a perfectionist constantly trying to optimize your productivity in ways that are distracting you from the actual capital-W Work.1
If you’re looking for specifics, Zvi Mowshowitz shares an extensive collection of notes about how different writers write. Your mileage may vary with Jack Keroac’s “Belief & Technique for Modern Prose,” but one in particular stands out as a call to embrace individuality instead of trying to fashion yourself into what you think a writer is:
No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
Sometimes improvement can start by adjusting your perspective. Kurt Vonnegut simplifies storytelling to its most basic contours to show there are only three kinds of story. Michael Lopp wants you to understand that less than 1% of your writing will be life-changing, but that’s not the whole story. Ann Handley prioritizes momentum over perfection, and shares some other insights from her attempt at consistently writing 1,000 words per day.
And sometimes an exercise can help get the synapses firing, like when Doug Muir and his kids worked out a chain of plausible causality to see if it was really possible for Jeff Bezos to run through the streets throwing $2 million in $100 bills.
It’s not always the case, but there are times when the writer is the biggest obstacle to getting writing done. A little shake up to the routine or a goofy thought experiment could help to get you out of your own way.
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A better way to write (everywhere)
Writers have asked for us to bring Highland’s clean, distraction-free writing environment to the iPad and iPhone. This week, Quote-Unquote Apps launched the universal app Highland Pro.
But that’s not all that’s new. Highland is rebuilt from the ground up, chock full of new features (with more to come).
Highland Pro is an app designed by writers for writers. It gives you a flexible environment where your habits and style shape the app, and not the other way around.
Highland Pro is available via the App Store.
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link, Marc Muszynski explains the ethical dilemma of programming moral, “properly aligned” AIs by pointing out what a little sociopathic con man R2-D2 is.
What else is inneresting?
James Harrison donated blood over 1,100 times. Every two weeks until he was 81. His plasma contained a rare antibody, and was used to save the lives of more than two million babies. That’s it. Just a story about a good person doing a kind thing to the fullest to protect the lives of others.
Mike Hardy suggests March is the true start of the year (when it comes to getting things done).
Chris Person uses the recent transfer of True Lies to explain how AI-assisted remastering homogenizes and degrades the look of movies.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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Editor’s Note: It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.