Finishing The Thought
AI summary of the linked articleSimon argues that publishing a thought is worth doing even when it is half-formed, because writing it down for others forces clarity and changes the writer. He cites Toby Shorin's phrase "finished the thought" and says that writing more regularly makes writing easier, pointing to Henrik Karlsson's "shit blog" as an example. He also argues that a weekly practice should feel enjoyable in its process, comparing it to his running hobby, and suggests writing weekly pieces that could later be condensed into 5 to 10 essays. |
2 comments  This related tweet by Toby Shorin is also worth a read https://x.com/tobyshorin/status/1836823237181001865 What I don’t always get from a weekly newsletter writing practice is the feeling of compounding that one gets from say a regular running schedule. In other words, not only just using the discipline to write more ‘finished thoughts’, but to use it for the equivalent of training for a race. Mhh, I think then you‘re maybe looking in the wrong places to see the opportunity! I think you‘ve found a dedicated group of fans that you‘re talking to every week. The outcome of the writing contest also showed this. We feel attachment and invested in your writer‘s life. And we talk among each other as a community. So I think that‘s where a compounding effect could be leveraged from. If you mobilized us, I think this would become more easily visible. Btw, this compound is quadratic because that‘s how human networks tend to organize at a maximum. You maximally talk to all of your friends in your clique. But most talk to less than everyone, so smaller than the square of clique members. Which means that it‘ll feel sublinear or linear for a very long time before it feels quadratic 😀 |