it feels a little bit like cheating to take the prompt "how do I write a good essay in a single sitting?" and use it to write an essay about writing essays, lol
but i am pretty confident that i can take this approach i've just tried to articulate/demonstrate, and use it again tomorrow, with hopefully less writing-about-writing, maybe. I think I'd like to pursue the path I didn't take (Eno, constraints) but we'll see what happens
Of course, you cheated a bit and went off course; you know it, I know it, but I forgive, because your essay amazed me and I see you're 'getting there'.
We can talk about getting from 'there' to 'here', and play on the middle-ground between 'here and there' some other day in the online 'place' I'm creating between "tavern and temple" if you wish.
I went on a 14-day journey to write my response-essay newsletter (and for your convenience recorded the article voiceover) inspired by your essay and "The Road is Life" by Erik Rittenberry of "Poetic Outlaws".
Love the distinction between being good at words and being versed in structure! ALSO the way critics have a lot to say about things they cannot DO! wonderful read TY
"I’ve come to see that there are a lot of people who are talented with words who nonetheless can’t quite make a career out of writing professionally, because they struggle with the professionalism. That is, showing up regularly, meeting deadlines and so on. Creatives are quite notoriously bad at this. "
I think about and discuss this often, and one of the reasons I have faith in myself as a writer is the competitive advantage I've built in this through grueling commercial / start-up training. Professionalism isn't just an empty set of social rituals and processes to enforce conformity as I first thought, though that definitely is a function of it, but it's also a broader mindset for committing to something for a long time, and committing to it seriously. It emphasises the importance of detachment and rituals, just getting on with hitting a deadline, be OK with producing some garbage in pursuit of producing something great, accepting that some arbitrary structure is needed to get to the really good new, novel stuff.
Having said that, I think anyone can learn it! But it takes some letting go of the artist-ego which tends to express itself as a righteous puritanism or perfectionism; you want to be a good artist with integrity, not a sell-out, but really - all of the most influential artists knew that you have to sell *something*!
Jeff Tweedy talks about how a lot of great musicians fail to be productive because they fail to appreciate the art in doing business, which you wouldn't guess from the outside, because his music is explicitly Uncool "Dad Rock", his lyrics are nonsensical streams of consciousness, which is intentional - a deliberate projection of effortlessness, which is very marketable in the art world! Or another example - Bob Dylan as a symbol of protest culture, anti-capitalism and all, but he was a marketing genius who knew that he was achieving reach by selling a representation - necessarily a commoditised version - of himself ("I'm not there"; all the insane inconsistent stories he made up about his background)
For me, the most valuable aspect was seeing this took you around 3 hours. So I can think to myself that I should take about twice as long for an essay half as long, considering I have much less experience writing.
ha... i'm not super sure that that's necessarily how it works; there are all sorts of other possible factors that might complicate it, but as a loose rule of thumb, maybe, yeah
It's quite helpful for beginners to see you come to this conclusion. Whenever I try to write the recommended way with a central message and a structure, I feel it becomes lame. I love writing when I do not know what the next paragraph will be about.
Your mind is a beautiful storm. I cant explain how I am able to reach synthesis so often when reading your work, but it happens. I keep thinking "So far this is too unorganised to make any sense," but at the end of the day, the writing imprints on my brainstem like it was always meant to be there. Thanks for always being out here to give me these little boosts of courage
"An essay is an invitation to spend 5-10 mins inhabiting someone else's mind"
The novel The Count of Monte Cristo was a whole new experience fo me. Turns out a 1400 page novel is an invitation to take up a sublet in someone else's mind. If not a sublet, they invite you over for tea. I've been reading it for 2 weeks and i'm still in the first volume, almost 700 pages in. I feel a connection to France and İtaly in a way i had never felt before (novel's set there). And it's even more surprising when you realize this effect was not intended, this is not a historical novel, no, my guy Alexander Dumas wrote as if it were the 1800s because he lived in the 1800s, and suddenly i am acquainted with a day and age i had no idea about.
A friend had told me once that they found longer mediums meaningless now, after discovering the effect of putting a lot of meaning into a short phrase. Creating a statement that can travel beyond time and space. A perfect vessel that can carry thoughts across the minds of individuals of subsequent generations, down the stream of time.
This discussion made me realize that the long form can still offer something that short form does not. The short substantial form has the power to carry world-changing ideas, but that capability does not render long form meaningless.
A longer residency in an author's mind can also give rise to impactful change. And it might not be merely a recent invention. Sagas and epics.
Love the way you explore. I haven't thought it through but since you make the connection between feeling and architecture, I'm thinking about the arches in the structure of the body, joints that articulate bones and feelings that in-form us whether the right words resonate with the building blocks of the body that want to be in integrity, otherwise too much tension between the arches will hurt. Mmm... this essay feels right, it connects more than you realized before you sat down to write it and probably more than I realize now, anyway it
explains the gathering of words-in-formation during the whole day, which takes courage to let it all happen. Really good 👍
I love this. It deeply resonated and validated the way that I write. You nailed it, it feels like a good essay when you have a breakthrough insight or make a distinction for yourself, and that then makes something possible that was not possible when you started writing. *chef’s kiss*
> something possible that was not possible when you started writing
yes!! it feels silly now looking back: i've been struggling for so long in large part because i kept trying to map everything out in advance, but like anais nin said, that withers away the vividness of being fully present
so the task i have ahead of me is to just show up and IMPROVISE
which i do all the time in conversation, and in tweets, and when giving talks, etc. i just got so inside my head re: "I must write good essays", lmao. became something like "this date must go perfectly and I must make a perfect impression and recite the perfect talking points" brooo what r u doin lmao
it feels a little bit like cheating to take the prompt "how do I write a good essay in a single sitting?" and use it to write an essay about writing essays, lol
but i am pretty confident that i can take this approach i've just tried to articulate/demonstrate, and use it again tomorrow, with hopefully less writing-about-writing, maybe. I think I'd like to pursue the path I didn't take (Eno, constraints) but we'll see what happens
Of course, you cheated a bit and went off course; you know it, I know it, but I forgive, because your essay amazed me and I see you're 'getting there'.
We can talk about getting from 'there' to 'here', and play on the middle-ground between 'here and there' some other day in the online 'place' I'm creating between "tavern and temple" if you wish.
I went on a 14-day journey to write my response-essay newsletter (and for your convenience recorded the article voiceover) inspired by your essay and "The Road is Life" by Erik Rittenberry of "Poetic Outlaws".
It was quite a ride.
https://okeko.substack.com/p/raw-responses-tell-whats-true-in-me-pt2
I'm sure you love it ☺️
I welcome your response
Cheers
This whole essay resonates so hard it hurts (but might also hugely, game-changingly help, if I do the work to let it)
hehehe sorry-and-you're-welcome! excited about the possibility that it might help
Love the distinction between being good at words and being versed in structure! ALSO the way critics have a lot to say about things they cannot DO! wonderful read TY
"I’ve come to see that there are a lot of people who are talented with words who nonetheless can’t quite make a career out of writing professionally, because they struggle with the professionalism. That is, showing up regularly, meeting deadlines and so on. Creatives are quite notoriously bad at this. "
I think about and discuss this often, and one of the reasons I have faith in myself as a writer is the competitive advantage I've built in this through grueling commercial / start-up training. Professionalism isn't just an empty set of social rituals and processes to enforce conformity as I first thought, though that definitely is a function of it, but it's also a broader mindset for committing to something for a long time, and committing to it seriously. It emphasises the importance of detachment and rituals, just getting on with hitting a deadline, be OK with producing some garbage in pursuit of producing something great, accepting that some arbitrary structure is needed to get to the really good new, novel stuff.
Having said that, I think anyone can learn it! But it takes some letting go of the artist-ego which tends to express itself as a righteous puritanism or perfectionism; you want to be a good artist with integrity, not a sell-out, but really - all of the most influential artists knew that you have to sell *something*!
Jeff Tweedy talks about how a lot of great musicians fail to be productive because they fail to appreciate the art in doing business, which you wouldn't guess from the outside, because his music is explicitly Uncool "Dad Rock", his lyrics are nonsensical streams of consciousness, which is intentional - a deliberate projection of effortlessness, which is very marketable in the art world! Or another example - Bob Dylan as a symbol of protest culture, anti-capitalism and all, but he was a marketing genius who knew that he was achieving reach by selling a representation - necessarily a commoditised version - of himself ("I'm not there"; all the insane inconsistent stories he made up about his background)
Visa, excellent essay. what is the bravery threshold? Must one be suicidally brave or merely imprudently courageous?
🤔
i think that's something each person has to determine for themselves
For me, the most valuable aspect was seeing this took you around 3 hours. So I can think to myself that I should take about twice as long for an essay half as long, considering I have much less experience writing.
ha... i'm not super sure that that's necessarily how it works; there are all sorts of other possible factors that might complicate it, but as a loose rule of thumb, maybe, yeah
It's quite helpful for beginners to see you come to this conclusion. Whenever I try to write the recommended way with a central message and a structure, I feel it becomes lame. I love writing when I do not know what the next paragraph will be about.
Your mind is a beautiful storm. I cant explain how I am able to reach synthesis so often when reading your work, but it happens. I keep thinking "So far this is too unorganised to make any sense," but at the end of the day, the writing imprints on my brainstem like it was always meant to be there. Thanks for always being out here to give me these little boosts of courage
"An essay is an invitation to spend 5-10 mins inhabiting someone else's mind"
The novel The Count of Monte Cristo was a whole new experience fo me. Turns out a 1400 page novel is an invitation to take up a sublet in someone else's mind. If not a sublet, they invite you over for tea. I've been reading it for 2 weeks and i'm still in the first volume, almost 700 pages in. I feel a connection to France and İtaly in a way i had never felt before (novel's set there). And it's even more surprising when you realize this effect was not intended, this is not a historical novel, no, my guy Alexander Dumas wrote as if it were the 1800s because he lived in the 1800s, and suddenly i am acquainted with a day and age i had no idea about.
A friend had told me once that they found longer mediums meaningless now, after discovering the effect of putting a lot of meaning into a short phrase. Creating a statement that can travel beyond time and space. A perfect vessel that can carry thoughts across the minds of individuals of subsequent generations, down the stream of time.
This discussion made me realize that the long form can still offer something that short form does not. The short substantial form has the power to carry world-changing ideas, but that capability does not render long form meaningless.
A longer residency in an author's mind can also give rise to impactful change. And it might not be merely a recent invention. Sagas and epics.
Love the way you explore. I haven't thought it through but since you make the connection between feeling and architecture, I'm thinking about the arches in the structure of the body, joints that articulate bones and feelings that in-form us whether the right words resonate with the building blocks of the body that want to be in integrity, otherwise too much tension between the arches will hurt. Mmm... this essay feels right, it connects more than you realized before you sat down to write it and probably more than I realize now, anyway it
explains the gathering of words-in-formation during the whole day, which takes courage to let it all happen. Really good 👍
I love this. It deeply resonated and validated the way that I write. You nailed it, it feels like a good essay when you have a breakthrough insight or make a distinction for yourself, and that then makes something possible that was not possible when you started writing. *chef’s kiss*
> something possible that was not possible when you started writing
yes!! it feels silly now looking back: i've been struggling for so long in large part because i kept trying to map everything out in advance, but like anais nin said, that withers away the vividness of being fully present
so the task i have ahead of me is to just show up and IMPROVISE
which i do all the time in conversation, and in tweets, and when giving talks, etc. i just got so inside my head re: "I must write good essays", lmao. became something like "this date must go perfectly and I must make a perfect impression and recite the perfect talking points" brooo what r u doin lmao
Sounds very freeing
lol exactly!!! Embrace the improv 😍