There is no such thing as writer’s block. There are such things as laziness or fatigue, but you can only tell the difference by working.
Sometimes you just have to scrap days of work and be damn glad you caught it in time.
Freelance is a synonym for pantsless.
Don’t feel like writing? Great! You’re about to prove if you’re a writer or not!
The first draft isn’t about generating a finished product, it’s about generating a mindset which can do that.
If you’re having a hard time writing a thousand words, just write two thousand and keep the better half.
That wonderful feeling when you realize you haven’t discovered a deep and horrible hollowness of doubt about your ability, you’ve just written through lunch again. So you eat something and write more and feel brilliant!
Does everything about the process of writing also apply to designing latex? Seems to be so.
Let’s see:
- Joyous improvement the more you do it
- Create wonderful new things which make people happy
- You look back and go “hells yes, I made that and now it makes me FEEL GOOD.”
- Genuine physical sensual delicious glorious pleasure
Hypothesis supported! Writing is latex!
That wonderful feeling when you realize you haven’t discovered a deep and horrible hollowness of doubt about your ability, you’ve just written through lunch again. So you eat something and write more and feel brilliant!
I have never been happier with my “Write far more than you need then cut it to the bone” technique, just like every other time I use it.
Improve your productivity by becoming a workaholic: you’re only allowed more drink when you write more words.
Finally uploading a big article is like finally coming with your brain.
You worked hard to get that far and enjoyed every single second of the process, but it feels oh so so good to finish.
(BONUS: The writing refractory period is zero seconds.)
Cutting is more important than writing. If you cut without writing you can still be a great editor. If you write without cutting you’re drowning the world in unfiltered garbage.
Some people call editing your own work “murdering your babies”, forgetting the part where you reread the work the next day and realise that those weren’t babies, they were ugly chest-bursting parasites which came out in the wrong place, destroying important structures in the process, horrible acid-dripping abominations and you’re much happier now they’re gone.
First Draft Freedom
The First Freedom, the immense feeling of relief when you’ve hacked together the first complete draft of anything. It might be a crudely stitched Frankenstein of earlier drafts and things that seemed like a good idea at the time, hideously ugly, and contain a few murderous flaws, but you know you’ve made something which could conceivably stand by itself and face the world. It’s just that that would be an incredibly bad idea.
So you grab your cutting knife and get back to work.
So you grab your cutting knife and get back to work.
There’s never a time when you can’t write, only times when you need to write more to get the same number of usable words.
