How To Make Notes is a great book about how to gather material to write.
Can you provide a link? I searched Amazon and didn't find any book by that title.
"How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens is probably what parent meant.
How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
41–50 of 76 posts
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#42I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
I understand how others can suffer from writer's block even though it does not pertain to me. Have not happened and never will. Typically those who suffer writer's block go into writing on the false premise that all writing should be inspired. Like the first sentence you type on a blank page should be heavenly divine. There is this false notion in our society of a true, mythic writer that is a muse-inspired drunkard puking paragraphs reeking of genius. If that's how you think about writing then, of course, writer's block will be common.
When I write, the premise is I attempt to turn shit to gold, eventually.
Closer to the truth is as described in this article, writing is more like blind plumbing work. It's very revisional. Whole paragraphs and pages are reworked and outright deleted left and right. The final script is rarely in the order you started. Then your editor goes to work, butchering your baby. It's very painful, but you know this is the way to end up with something the reader finds readable.
Reading a published novel as a wannabe author, you must keep in mind that it's revised to perfection. Repeatedly hammered like a Japanese sword. Writing is definitely a forging process and not magic.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#43Here's a question about possible cultural differences: I notice that a good number of blog posts I come across these days, that are actually about a technical topic, either start with or prominently feature the authors feelings toward the topic. This post is a great example for what I mean, it starts with "I love writing. Every little goddamn bit of it." I'm personally really turned off by that particular writing sty…
This is how I feel about most meal recipes I encounter on the internet. The writer's backstory for the recipe is so inconsequential to my wanting that specific set of instructions. Yet there it is, every time.
I was always confused about this, but learned copyright doesn't apply to recipes that are just lists of ingredients + instructions, and this is why people add stories etc to them, so they can't be easily ripped.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#44I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
This is is not good writing any more than curling a single finger a thousand times is good exercise for the body.
Oh, but good writing can come out of it more easily than just trying to come up with something good from the start.
It's easier to filter than to shape. And easier to shape something already filtered than shaping from a blank page.
Also, not all writing have to be good. A lof of them already have value if they are not bad.
After all, writing for the purpose of writing is a beautiful endeavor, but writing for sharing information is a great in itself, and a perfect but non-existing reference will always worse than a dry but at hand paper.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#45I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
The thing you are describing is not the opposite of writer's block. It's something orthogonal to it, at least in my experience. I'm also quite capable of stringing together endless seemingly coherent texts about anything when there are no true personal stakes involved. However, when trying to tell a story or covering a subject that I really care about, that's a whole other ball game.
For me it's not. If the subject matters, the same process can be applied, and eventually something good emerges from it. You just filter the crap out, shape it, and you have the base for something great.
The good old advice of "just start writing" is easy to follow when words flow naturally.
And it works.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#46I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
But you're writing about a subject you know about - what about something new, something actually creative? Writing fiction? A subject you know nothing about and for which you can't look up anything?
Same. To get creativity, just removes filters, apply constraints, and let it flow. The mind is creative.
For quality, reapply filters.
For subject you know nothing about, either research, or just play with your ignorance.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#47I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
I wish I could hire someone who had the same attitude toward writing... Hard to find!
I used to do that job when I was young to pay for university.
The problem is as you become an adult, you don't feel like writing about a topic you don't care anymore, even for money.
So I'm guessing the one remaining are very expensive.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#48I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
Writer's block doesn't mean you can't write random words, it means you can't write something in a way to properly continoue your work.
It's the same, the only difference is filtering and shaping, and keeping up at it. It's a cycle. Babble, filter, shape. Then babble again. Sometimes you skip directly to write well shaped words because you are in the zone. Sometimes you just embarrass yourself because you are in public, and there is no opportunity to shape and filter.
But the process is the same, at least for me.
I assume other people do it differently, but the point is, writer's blocks seems alien to me. As long as you are not in a coma, I don't see how your mind cannot come up with something. And as long as it can, something worth committing too can be found.
It's not like sport when you have an actual physical limitation. You brain is literally a machine to produce ideas. It does that constantly, in mass.
Everybody has it, because everybody have weird dreams when they sleep.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#49I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
Purely writing usually isn't that hard. Writing what you want you want to say can be much harder, and conveying these things effectively doubly so. Anyone can play guitar too. Making music is harder. Making music express your feelings harder still.
For me not really, it's just matter of spending more time on it.
If I spend 20 minutes, I will just produce BS. If I invest more time and energy, something good will come out.
When I was a kid I always assumed everybody was the same: you could always express what you had in mind. Took me years to realize not only it's not the case, but most people actually don't use words for their meaning at all.
Once I got that, my oral communication improved tremendously, but writing stayed mostly the same. Oral can be messy, sometimes it's even better than way. On paper, though, being clear is a virtue.
And if you can't be clear from the beginning, just babble until your brain gets in the flow, and you'll get to something eventually. Then strip the useless part, clean up the good one, and you got a winner.
Re: How to Make Writing a Lot Easier
#50I really never understood writer's block. I can write 10000 words on the spot on any random word picked out of the dictionary. Even a one I don't know at all. Friends loved to test me on this, picking up some BS topic and see if I can come up with a scenario or a song. Then after a few minutes of my rambling they get bored of course. Having something to say doesn't mean it's interesting. My problem is rather to learn…
I understand how others can suffer from writer's block even though it does not pertain to me. Have not happened and never will. Typically those who suffer writer's block go into writing on the false premise that all writing should be inspired. Like the first sentence you type on a blank page should be heavenly divine. There is this false notion in our society of a true, mythic writer that is a muse-inspired drunkard…
> Reading a published novel as a wannabe author, you must keep in mind that it's revised to perfection
Yes, in fact, I'm so used to that I sometimes edit my HN comments 10 to 15 times, and get frustrated when the "edit" link disappears.
But the initial one is always easy to write. I don't wonder "geez, what could I say?". It also often sucks, full of typo, things that could be badly interpreted, and so on.
Funny thing is, I'm currently learning to let it suck. Invest less energy. And as this thread proves, I'm failing miserably at it :)