Concerning this essay, Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing came to mind, particularly the 10th rule, the most important one (to me). From memory now, I think it went: When you find yourself writing stuff that readers are going to skip over . . . yes, don't write that.
It's all well and good to focus on the writer (the engine of the output) for the first draft, after all, at that point the writer and the reader are one in the same. Joined at the hip.
However, if you think--as I think--that writing (the final product) is not about the writer and not about the reader, but about the connection that forms when the reader actually reads the final product (after several drafts, corrections, additions and a lot of deletions) . . . then that is where the magic is.
That is the purpose of writing, to achieve that magic. And focusing on writability over readability, or resonance over coherence means missing out on the magic. Paraphrasing Capote (see below), that's drafting, not writing.
I read the first few paragraphs, then became perhaps as drowsy as the writer and began to skip sentences and then paragraphs. Never went back. Since the writer, focused so intently (but drowsily) on spinning it out without much attention to coherence, well then that's what the reader gets stuck with: incoherence. How does the reader react: with growing indifference.
Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs also wrote this way and achieved that sort of incoherence. And indifference.
A good writer has to focus on his process, but if he diminishes the reader's experience, then you end up with what Truman Capote said about On The Road: that's not writing, that's typing.
I just read to footnote 1 (inclusive of footnote) and have to say this is exactly the position I have reached. Both on twitter and in my longform. Even though I have a desire for my longform writing to be more widely read, it is not stronger than my desire to write the way I want to write, I really like writing run-on sentences and weird speaking-style bits and I don't want a reader who isn't at least open to those things. More after I read more (probably)
My only additional comment is that I, too, am tired of playing it safe. I think part of what's tricky about this for me and perhaps you also is that our playing it safe is already about 5 million miles out of the average person's comfort zone. that makes it hard to recognise. that makes it ESSENTIAL to pay attention to the interior experience. that's where the signals of "youve been playing it safe for a while now" can come to our attention.
i'm surprised you say it's easy to avoid being cancelled
years ago, when virtually my only web presence was on linkedin, a couple of people started rallying an angry mob at me on twitter because they somehow got the idea that i was behind an annoying political account (I still don't know where they got that idea). they got as far as "looks like he works at so-and-so company" before a friend was able to diffuse it
and there's the classic case of Justine Sacco, who posted an in-joke photo about disobeying signs that led to an angry mob getting her fired
or Scott Aaronson who was cancelled for talking about how feminist messaging had caused him suffering
looks to me like cancelling can't be systamically avoided. internet angry mobs are so irrational they can ruin your life for literally zero reason.
> the first thing that seems to go out the window is capitalization, though the moment I say that I find myself reaching for the capital I, semi-reflexively.
I find intentional avoidance of things like capitalization harder than writing normally. There's mental strain which feels similar to Stroop task. Similarly, someone made LLM prompt which functions as absurdly good autocorrect, but trying to mash on the keyboard vaguely intending to hit roughly where intended keys are, is slower than typing the normal way and almost painful.
Concerning this essay, Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing came to mind, particularly the 10th rule, the most important one (to me). From memory now, I think it went: When you find yourself writing stuff that readers are going to skip over . . . yes, don't write that.
It's all well and good to focus on the writer (the engine of the output) for the first draft, after all, at that point the writer and the reader are one in the same. Joined at the hip.
However, if you think--as I think--that writing (the final product) is not about the writer and not about the reader, but about the connection that forms when the reader actually reads the final product (after several drafts, corrections, additions and a lot of deletions) . . . then that is where the magic is.
That is the purpose of writing, to achieve that magic. And focusing on writability over readability, or resonance over coherence means missing out on the magic. Paraphrasing Capote (see below), that's drafting, not writing.
I read the first few paragraphs, then became perhaps as drowsy as the writer and began to skip sentences and then paragraphs. Never went back. Since the writer, focused so intently (but drowsily) on spinning it out without much attention to coherence, well then that's what the reader gets stuck with: incoherence. How does the reader react: with growing indifference.
Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs also wrote this way and achieved that sort of incoherence. And indifference.
A good writer has to focus on his process, but if he diminishes the reader's experience, then you end up with what Truman Capote said about On The Road: that's not writing, that's typing.
And yet, in reviewing the writing that you've done, which has brought you to such powerful conviction, I find nothing (at least not on this profile).
Which isn't to say that you're wrong, but is at least to say that you ought to be careful, because you might be seriously misinterpreting reality.
If being a good writer means not publishing at all, then I would rather be known as a bad writer.
Man you spent 4 hours on sleep mode instead of 30 mins😂
Learned a lot of things from this. Great references. Loved it
Something here about perfect being the enemy of good.
I just read to footnote 1 (inclusive of footnote) and have to say this is exactly the position I have reached. Both on twitter and in my longform. Even though I have a desire for my longform writing to be more widely read, it is not stronger than my desire to write the way I want to write, I really like writing run-on sentences and weird speaking-style bits and I don't want a reader who isn't at least open to those things. More after I read more (probably)
My only additional comment is that I, too, am tired of playing it safe. I think part of what's tricky about this for me and perhaps you also is that our playing it safe is already about 5 million miles out of the average person's comfort zone. that makes it hard to recognise. that makes it ESSENTIAL to pay attention to the interior experience. that's where the signals of "youve been playing it safe for a while now" can come to our attention.
i'm surprised you say it's easy to avoid being cancelled
years ago, when virtually my only web presence was on linkedin, a couple of people started rallying an angry mob at me on twitter because they somehow got the idea that i was behind an annoying political account (I still don't know where they got that idea). they got as far as "looks like he works at so-and-so company" before a friend was able to diffuse it
and there's the classic case of Justine Sacco, who posted an in-joke photo about disobeying signs that led to an angry mob getting her fired
or Scott Aaronson who was cancelled for talking about how feminist messaging had caused him suffering
looks to me like cancelling can't be systamically avoided. internet angry mobs are so irrational they can ruin your life for literally zero reason.
fun and resonant, really enjoyed this read
Relate to every line in this piece! Gah.
> the first thing that seems to go out the window is capitalization, though the moment I say that I find myself reaching for the capital I, semi-reflexively.
I find intentional avoidance of things like capitalization harder than writing normally. There's mental strain which feels similar to Stroop task. Similarly, someone made LLM prompt which functions as absurdly good autocorrect, but trying to mash on the keyboard vaguely intending to hit roughly where intended keys are, is slower than typing the normal way and almost painful.