How to Feed Your Writing Mind

Use iteration to create experiments

Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash

Committing to your writing practice can be difficult.

Writing is imperfect. It takes time and a willingness to be humble in the face of shitty first (and second) drafts.

Samuel Beckett put it like this:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

If you keep trying again, each iteration builds on the last ones. Incremental changes move you forward.

iteration n.: version or incarnation

//the latest iteration of the operating system

iteration v.: the action or a process of repeating

My current goal is to fail a little less each time I write.

Improving your craft is a process, not a single step. Each time you put something out and step back, ask yourself: Is this working?

Here’s a secret: The writing process is an experiment

Here are the steps I follow to improve my writing.

Choose two variables

• An output variable is something to measure; word count or time are two easy ones for a writer…