

So You Want To Be A Writer? That’s Mistake #1 - clarkm
http://www.ryanholiday.net/so-you-want-to-be-a-writer-thats-mistake-1/

======
mattjaynes
This is a really great point.

I'm a big advocate of Kathy Sierra's "minimum badass user" strategy.
Basically, try to write as little about yourself and write what will be most
useful to improve someone else's abilities. I'm not amazing at this (yet), but
it's my main goal.

Identifying too closely with being a "writer" or "coder" or whatever can be
detrimental to doing more meaningful work. That's because it's all about you.
But really, it should be all about your users and how you are making their
lives better.

The more you can focus on "What will help _my reader_ be awesome?" instead of
"What will _I_ write?", the better your writing will be.

Nobody cares about how awesome I am (and they shouldn't!), but everyone cares
about becoming more awesome themselves. Resist the temptation to focus on
yourself and shift that focus to them and you'll automatically be better than
99% of writers out there.

If you spend a week learning something remarkable and then show others how to
do it in only an hour, it's a huge win for them. By focusing on learning and
then sharing what you learned in a succinct way, you are accelerating the
progress of others. That, more than anything else, will make you a great
writer. The metric should be how much more powerful your readers are after
reading your writing.

(Naturally, I'm talking about a specific type of writing here, not fiction or
historical writing, etc.)

~~~
brudgers
_" I'm a..."_

What matters is that the topic about which a person is writing is something
about which they feel passionate - for example the process of writing in the
original article...and in your post...and in this post. So, while I agree that
anyone who cares about how awesome I am will be sorely disappointed, my goal
is to say something interesting and entertaining - not necessarily
entertaining in the sense of amusement but in the sense of engaging the
reader's mind.

I suppose that the Pythonic Mr. Anchovy has no more likelihood of going from a
chartered accountant to writer in one go than he does of becoming a lion
tamer. But that seems a wanting-to-be-a-writer-strawman.

I read somewhere that there's no such thing as a person who is passionate
about writing who doesn't write, and I am too lazy to google it.

The strong sense of wanting to be a writer is wanting to be a better writer,
and that means practicing the craft and throwing manuscripts over the transom
and the internet is a great place for doing that, e.g. HN provides an
excellent opportunity to obtain feedback about one's writing, and not just
from internet trolls, but from "really fucking smart people."®

Of course that's just my opinion.

~~~
cafard
As I look at my office bookshelf--which runs from tech stuff to random stuff
bought downtown and not taken home, I question "about which they feel
passionate". It is certainly reasonable to say that Hennessy and Patterson
have a consuming interest in hardware design, but do they feel passionate
about it? Would Wright Morris or Anthony Burgess have used "feel passionate"
as a reason for writing those volumes of autobiography?

------
mbrock
The author sets up a dichotomy between living an interesting life and learning
rules of grammar. But writing well is deeper than either. If you don't
practice and learn from the masters, then even your most fascinating stories
will turn to mush.

"Take any good piece of writing, something that matters to you. Why is it
good? Because of what it says. Because what [sic] the writer manages to
communicate to you, their reader. It’s because of what’s within it, not how
they wrote it."

Obviously not true! Even our patron saint Paul is praised for his style as
much as his insight. His clarity is a product of taste, training, and vigorous
editing. And, I'm confident, of a strong wish to write good prose.

There's something to Ryan's point, but he doesn't express it very well. The
article could be much better.

Just one example: the first paragraph namedrops Schopenhauer, but the article
doesn't make use of the philosopher's thought. Instead, he's only brought in
as a sideshow to support the author's point. Does he respect Schopenhauer's
philosophy? If so, why not engage with it? If not, why cite him as
authoritative? Sloppy!

------
neovi
These types of posts that deal with identity always bring me back to Paul
Graham's identity post [1] and Bruce Lee's quote on limitation [2].

I feel that by being too focused on the identity, you fall in love with the
action, not what the action does or can do. Like Ryan Holiday is saying, they
don't write to say something, but for the sake of writing.

With Bruce Lee in regard, he went beyond his formal training in wing chun and
studied other forms of fighting and also studied philosophy along with other
topics. It seems beneficial to a person to seek out other interests and
intertwine them, I feel that that's what creates more beautiful work.

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html)
[2] [http://zenpencils.com/comic/36-bruce-lee-there-are-no-
limits...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/36-bruce-lee-there-are-no-limits/)

------
dmix
On a related note, you should probably just read Schopenhauer in general.

His philosophical works are very inaccessible (to those unprepared) but his
essays are brilliant and casually consumable.

[http://www.amazon.com/Essays-and-Aphorisms-Classics-
ebook/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Essays-and-Aphorisms-Classics-
ebook/dp/B002RI9K9K/)

FYI: He was the philosopher who influenced Nietzsche the most.

~~~
ryanholiday
Yes they are very readable and his thoughts often feel like they were written
last week. It's surprisingly timeless.

Schopenhauer was not a big proponent of empty, pointless philosophizing. His
stuff is all practical and to the point.

------
mehwoot
I think it's good advice, but I also think it is wrong. There are writers who
I read for the sheer joy of the skilled way they construct their prose- Salman
Rushdie would come to mind as one.

That doesn't mean he doesn't also have worthwhile things to say. But there is
undoubtedly a skill to great writing that is only improved by doing more of
it.

~~~
bksenior
They aren't writers they are entertainers.

~~~
julian_t
Hmmm... so is it necessary for someone's writing not to be enjoyable or
entertaining in order for them to be thought a proper writer?

~~~
bksenior
No, professional mass market writers are entertainer. Not sure how else to say
it.

------
mindcrime
The one point he makes there, which I find to be terribly important, is the
bit about reading a lot.

I don't claim to be a great writer or anything, but I've managed to get an
article or two[1][2] "out there" and have actually had a few people (including
a former English professor) give me some praise for my style. But outside of
Creative Writing 101 my first year of college, and H.S. grammar class, I have
done little in the way of "training" to be a writer.

Except... I read a lot. I mean, a _lot_. Like, a really, really, lot. I read
voraciously, which is a trait I appear to have inherited from my mother. And I
can't help but think that if you read a lot, you'll inevitably absorb enough
of _something_ to go a long way towards becoming a decent - if not great -
writer, if you choose to write.

So yeah, I think "read a lot" and "write a lot" are really the keys to writing
well. Sure, this might not get you to James Joyce territory, but for writing
marketing material, blogs, technical docs, etc., it can take you a long way.

And as far as that goes, somebody famous (Stephen King, IIRC) said pretty much
the same thing in a book on writing. "Read a lot, and write a lot".

I'm with Ryan here... don't label yourself as "a writer" just read and write.
If you _really_ don't get basic grammar and punctuation, read Strunk & White,
or _Eats, Shoots & Leaves_. That should be enough to enable you to write at a
respectable level.

I would add one more thing though... since I started writing more for specific
reasons (that is, beyond random ranting on my blog) I do read with more of a
conscious eye on the details of what I'm reading, in terms of structure,
voice, etc. And I freely admit I will shamelessly crib useful ideas from other
writers. Of course, it might not be the best thing for my interest in writing
technical content that my favorite writers include Dean Koontz, Stephen King
and H.P. Lovecraft.

[1]: [http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/why-
you-s...](http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/why-you-should-
care-about-your-local-hackerspace-221628)

[2]: [http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/how-
provi...](http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/how-provision-
users-in-cloud-world-227362)

------
ssivark
If writing is only a means to an end and it's wrong to identify as being a
writer, why shouldn't the same analogy apply to programming?

I've taken an excerpt from the article and replaced certain words with
analogous words related to programming: _" The problem is identifying as a
[programmer]. As though assembling [code] together is somehow its own
activity. It isn’t. It’s a means to an end. And that end is always to [create]
something..."_

Advice given to people who want to pursue programming versus pursuing writing
seems really different.

1\. Why is that the case, and why are the two not quite analogous?

2\. Is it just the bias of our perspective, as the "techie" people?

~~~
logn
He points out, part of the reason his advice holds is that getting published
isn't hard. And also that readers enjoy anything written, regardless of its
writing style, as long as it's a good read. The same isn't true for
programming. Getting 'published' requires getting a compiler to agree to run
your code, getting peers willing to work with you, and finding a company which
thinks you should be hired (or starting your own). And computer users won't
accept buggy programs, even though they may accept poor grammar. Also, the
industry is perfectly happy to tell programmers exactly what programs to write
and pays them well. In effect, being a "writer" isn't that great of a goal
because writing (in itself) for readers isn't that hard--it's hard finding
something worth saying. Programming is hard and most programmers write for
companies who already have an audience.

edit:

Maybe a better analogy to this article is not to programmers, but to startup
founders. Don't set out to be a founder, set out to make something people
want, and to do that requires a little bit of life experience too.

------
kosei
If you write enough and are willing to study, you can learn the proper grammar
or diction. That said, it is sad that we don't seem to have authors who write
fantastic prose anymore. Rather, everyone writes to the lowest common
denominator, because (as the author notes), the prose isn't what matters. I
feel this same way about music - I think it's often harder to find successful
_skilled musicians_ than it is to find successful musicians who found
something interesting or different to play, regardless of their skill.

~~~
objclxt
> _it is sad that we don 't seem to have authors who write fantastic prose
> anymore_

To spin this around a little: we don't talk about authors in the past whose
prose isn't worth going back to. Shakespeare had many contemporaries, but you
might be hard pressed to name more than a couple.

Good prose can be challenging, and people don't want to be challenged all the
time. I admire Pynchon's writing in Gravity's Rainbow - I don't want every
book I read to be like that.

Or to put it another way: there are many novels from the 19th century that
were massively popular at the time, but totally forgotten about now. They were
novels that were pretty average in terms of prose, but had stories that were
relevant to people at the time, and gripped them.

I doubt if in a hundred years people will still be reading the Da Vinci Code -
but I can guarantee books like Infinite Jest, The Satanic Verses, Nights at
the Circus, and the like will be attracting critical attention.

------
lemonjazz
You could go out and experience a bunch of crazy shit and at the end of it
all, not know how to put it in words that people will understand. That's what
makes writing a craft. You could write passionately and still not get to what
you're trying to say because you don't know how to make the words work for
you. But I do agree, there's no point in writing something unless people are
compelled to read it.

~~~
objclxt
> _there 's no point in writing something unless people are compelled to read
> it_

I would probably disagree with this, if only in the sense that there are
several works I can think of that _at the time of publication_ were ignored,
only to be re-appraised at a later date. It can be very hard to determine
whether your writing is compelling, and even if your contemporaries decide it
isn't there's no reason it may not be relevant in the future.

------
FLUX-YOU
Pretty good post.

Writing on pure impulse is good for practice and discipline and short-length
things, but it won't help you when you need to write a ton of stuff that has
flow and needs to be coherent. It is great for a first 'driver' to get you
doing something productive, but you need to combine it with additional
'drivers' along the way (planning, coherency, etc.)

For instance, I could not imagine GRRM being successful with ASOIAF if it was
written without discipline and planning.

An interesting contrast is that this author praises unique ideas, but discards
its execution as less important (or not important), while most programmers are
more concerned with the execution of ideas, since the ideas in that realm are
very common (usually).

In both cases though, it's ideal to have both a good idea and good execution.
In the case of this post, the execution is in the word choice, word play, and
other writing elements I don't remember from school because I was too busy
writing drunk and editing drunk.

------
tmerr
It's about what's within it, not how they wrote it. But at the same time
what's within it evolves with practice. With novels and poetry imagination is
the limit. Practice pushes that forward, probably more so than with the sort
of writing Ryan is doing. He makes some great points though.

------
wtracy
Oddly enough, a lot of that applies to programming as well, though to a lesser
degree.

~~~
throwaway98604
I think it would be exactly like programming if piracy was legal.

