Learning to Write | 2020 Edition
Each year, I write a guide on what I have learned in the year. Writing is one of those crafts that I strive to improve life long. I am currently writing the 2020 editing. You can read the 2019 editing from here. And at the end of the decade, I will turn them into a pdf to make money off amazon.
Anyway, so here is what I have learned this year.
Breakup your essays into posts
I think the most important lesson that I learned this year is that people have limited time and if you have two choices, to write a detailed one post and to write multiple posts explaining one idea, then write multiple posts. And link them together densely. So that reader can follow her curiosity, not your sequence of posting.
Rather than writing one huge post titled, learning to write, where you say everything you learned, write multiple posts that you go on each nuance in depth (except you are writing on writing for writing’s sake like me).
I am doing this by introducing my ideas and perspective on a system of keeping a notebook, CommonBullet Journal. I have presented my hypophysis in another post and explaining its every nuance like explaining what do I mean by the term Hard-hitting books.
In my Hindi podcast, I have learned the problem of assuming a lot of things in my mind while explaining something. So this new formate of writing short but deep posts works like worders for me.
Because in the long term, it's really hard to effectively think of the strategy for each one that aligns with what you want to do. But you can always expand later.
Email List is essential
Subscribing to an email list is one of the highest compliments a writer can get. It sends the signal that yes, I love you and I want to hear more from you. (If you do, you can subscribe to my newsletter).
Don’t go overboard with content cross-posting.
Just have a website, and focus on one social media fully. That’s why I have this website and one social media account, on the YouTube website.
Because in the long term, it’s really hard to effectively think of the strategy for each one that aligns with what you want to do. But you can always expand later.
Venture into the fulfilling journey of being interesting
Credit goes to Calvin Newport’s podcast.
One of the most fulfilling facets of keeping a blog and fucking actually paying for it is, and your mood swings are unaffected by the consistency of your work.
I can’t be like one day, haah, I don’t feel passion for writing and goes on to delete my full blog in one click.
If you pay for something, then you are actually committed to it. And staying committed is where the gold is.
Having no option gives you more freedom. Because you can now focus fully on it.
Millions of blogs made each month, some die after 6 months, and few live up to 4–5 years. This blog is just one year old and I already have shit planned that will take me a century to fulfill. So I can’t refrain from posting.
I know I am going to be billed each year, so the option to not post anything is not an option,. I have to read each day so that I have the option to cut the shit and only write about what I find truly brilliant insight.
Read enough, and you become a connoisseur. Then you naturally gravitate more towards theory, concepts, non-fiction. — Naval Ravikant
If you have no idea what you should write about, then read, consume, become a connoisseur so that you can appreciate what this beautiful world has to offer, and while doing that, you will come across all those moments that you can write about. This is how you decide what to write about.
Show your personality, and be willing to bear the consequences
Credit goes to Mark Manson.
If you drop f-bombs while speaking, then write with it. Denaying or trying to not show your self will result in mediocre work.
If you don’t do anything because of this fear, then you are still paying (with time.) Opportunity cost is bitch. Choosing to do nothing is still a choice you are making.
The way I write could be disrespectful for some people, and that’s fine with me. And it’s the important part, of being fine with it, it means you are taking into consideration what are the consequences of it.
Shit takes time
You can’t expect money rolling at the moment you hit the first post as your introduction. When people ask “I have made this blog, now what I should write first about”. They miss the point.
Here are the problems that you are trying to solve. Nobody is telling you to start a blog. But you did it. Now give people reasons to read it too.
Follow the 3-year rule, best explained by Captain Sinbad bhaiya. Don’t take into consideration another choice (like quitting) for just 3 years.
And with that, follow the 10X rule, assume the time is going to take, and the effort you are thinking it would take to what you consider success.
Now multiply that by 10.
The world is complex and it does not operate with the laws of your mood but cold and hard rules of physics.
Depth wins every time
Cal Newport books have depth.
Content that has depth and not just another list-shaped dopamine-infused Medium post means you thought through the idea you are presenting and respect the reader’s time.
Even now Medium is hating it and adding some policies for it. Those writers who capitalized on copywriting but had no depth on what they are writing, lose.
To really build depth full relationship with your reader, you should write content that has really something to offer rather than just making you click on the heading.
You come across an essay, not interest of you but you see it’s written by CHETNEET CHOUHAN, and you decided to read it because you expect a new way to think from this guy.
This is what I want to aim at.
So in conclusion, write multiposts and link them, becoming an interesting person so that we have a reason to read your work, show your personality and be willing to bear consequences, write content that has depth, and finally, shit takes time.
