Strange Tuba Mating Calls And 7 Ways To Be A Better Writer
More on mating rituals later in this post…
But I saw this question on Quora today:
Does Reading Every Day Make You A Good Writer?
My answer is no.
Reading every day can be great for your development (depending on what you’re reading) but it doesn’t necessarily make you a good writer.
The only way to become a better writer is simply by writing more. You need to love the process of brain dumping your thoughts onto a screen, piece of paper, or dictation device (to be transcribed later).
Writing makes you a better, clearer thinker. Here’s a tweet thread with ways to make that work.
But here are seven hacks for falling in love with writing.
1. Writing something — anything — every day.
Just do it. Take the pressure off yourself.
Write on any given day when you wake up, after school, before your commute, or while watching TV. Don’t leave it for later. Just do it now. It doesn’t matter what you write or what deadline you have.
Write every day so that you can confidently say “I am a writer.” Writers write.
2. Mining for prompts.
You don’t have to kill yourself by staring at a blinking cursor or blank piece of paper. Go look for prompts. Quora is great for getting a starting point. It’s how I started this one!
Of course, reading books is helpful for finding ideas. Reading can certainly help you become a better writer.
But do you have to read every day? Nah.
3. Making it public.
Post your writing every day in a public place. Social media makes the most sense because people are already there.
After a while, you’ll get some feedback and you’ll be able to refine your writing. You’ll see what resonates with people and what doesn’t.
Be ok with whatever people say. Your identity shouldn’t be wrapped up in their approval of you.
You need this data in order to improve!
3. Recording yourself thinking out loud.
Dictation is a lost art. Go on a long walk and talk to yourself — but record it!
Listen back later and you’ll see what’s clear and what isn’t. Transcribe it or let it be a prompt for moving your fingers up and down on the keyboard later.
4. Being vulnerable.
Tell your story. People are nearly voyeuristic about other people’s lives. When you authentically tie your story to your content they will be more drawn to you.
5. Forgetting the rules.
Stop worrying about the rules of writing. There are none.
Except maybe one: write.
6. Redefining success.
The word success is completely misunderstood. The etymology of it has more to do with taking sequential steps… successive events that take place one after the other. Success is a series of successive attempts. Success is NOT quitting.
A good batting average in professional baseball is .300 which means you hit 30% of all the pitches thrown at you.
If I’m only thrown two pitches in my life, and I hit one that means I have a .500 batting average (50%). This average is unheard of in professional baseball.
Stop thinking about the home runs. Just swing more.
A successful writer is someone who writes a lot.
7. Having fun being unique!
Enjoy yourself. Throw in some strange ways to get people’s attention as I did in the headline and image of this post.
Try non-sense from time to time like this:
Most people believe that a load-bearing tuba player graduates from the grain of sand near the inferiority complex, but they need to remember how slyly the diskette for a mating ritual earns frequent flier miles.
You have permission to be different. The world needs it badly.
Here’s to writing more,
Nate
