I love writing. Writing makes me feel free.
I love writing because it allows me to slow down and think deeply. Socializing with people I can’t connect with feels boring and unrewarding. I despise superficiality in people and things. Everyone has different intellectual strengths. And I’m always drawn to exploring deeper and further. Things that float on the surface and quickly fade away mean nothing to me.
Lately I’ve been feeling creatively drained. All I do is transcribe from books. But that’s meaningless. What matters is personal experience and conviction, suffering and struggle, doubt and defiance… that’s where writing comes alive.
I want to reclaim and refine my writing skills. There’s one book that speaks to me perfectly—On Writing Well. Most of it is technical advice, but these three points are what matter most, and they resonate deeply:
1. What is good writing?
It is a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.
—William Zinsser, On Writing Well
From now on, I’ll make this my highest principle of writing.
Strip away the clutter from every sentence, leaving only the cleanest components.
—William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Every useless word, every long word that could be replaced with a short one, every redundant adverb, every passive voice construction that obscures the subject—all of these weaken the force of a sentence. You must find the waste in your writing and trim it ruthlessly. Don’t hesitate to cut just because the prose sounds fancy.
But how do you truly free yourself from redundancy? How do you eliminate all filler and deliver pure substance? First, you have to drain the water from your brain.
Clear thinking produces clear writing.
—William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Someone with muddled thoughts can’t possibly write well.
2. How to write?
Writing is an act of self. Write about yourself, and what you write will naturally attract readers. Believe in your identity, believe in your perspectives. Harness the power of the self.
—William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Readers can tell when you’re putting on an act.
Too many people think they need to be experts before they can say “I think” or “I want.” Fuck that. Even when a professor lectures me, what I want to hear is their passion—why this subject captivates them.
3. For whom do you write?
Write for yourself.
The primary purpose of writing is to please yourself.
—William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Don’t imagine some vast audience out there. If writing brings you joy, you’ll bring joy to the readers worth having. And if you lose the idiots along the way? You never needed them.
I’ve articulated these principles before. But I need to revisit them periodically, to remind myself to keep going.
We’re prisoners of our own cognition and others’ judgments. For a highly sensitive person, other voices constantly echo in your head. And pride in your identity can be just as constraining, keeping you trapped.
But ultimately, fuck them all.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
—Winston Churchill