Arikia Millikan: “Write for your future self”
Could insomnia be the writer’s greatest ally?
From her days as a science blogger for Seed, as research assistant for Nate Silver, or as an editor at Wired, Arikia Millikan has seen plenty: from hunting for Bigfoot’s DNA to having sex with a porn star through Google Glass. These days she edits the ever-exciting Ladybits collection on Medium.
We asked her how she writes.
How do you write? Do you have a specific routine or approach you take?
There’s a little strategy I like to call ‘insomnia.’ Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been driven to write in the night hours. My brain doesn’t fully turn on until the sun sets, and I have a hard time turning it off, so I began writing to fill the time productively. This compulsion helped me develop my skills, and somewhere along the way I turned my hobby into a profession.
If somebody asked you for tips on becoming a better writer, what’s the one thing you’d tell them?
If you don’t know who your audience is, write for your future self. Start a blog, keep a journal, take notes — whatever it takes. The act of writing drives events deeper into your memory, so even if you don’t know how to turn something interesting into a polished work at the time, writing it down will allow you to come back to it later. Glimpsing the words your past self wrote can transport you back to that time and jog your memory about all the tiny details you didn’t manage to jot down.
Also, find a good community, and a good handful of editors. No woman is an island.
A version of this interview was previously published in Overmatter, the weekly email from digital longform publisher MATTER. Sign up for an account today to receive a weekly dose of great stories, enthralling links and insightful tips.
