On Writing: A Few Things I've Picked Up

Several readers have asked for writing and publishing advice—here are some scattered thoughts on both.

The more you think about a lead, the worse it becomes. Just start writing about whatever has your interest at the moment—the first thing that comes out is usually good enough. It’s hard to be boring at the start if you’re excited about the subject. If you still need a stronger lead, cut the first paragraph. Often, the second paragraph is smoother, tighter, and less contrived—working perfectly well to capture the reader’s attention. (If the second doesn’t work, try the third.)

In general, you should write about your interests. This is the only way I know to overcome writer’s block—or, better yet, to avoid it entirely. If you ask me to write about God, AC/DC, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, or why there’s no non-elliptical, non-contradictory construal of atomic sentences of the form “A exists,” I could easily spill ten thousand words over my first cup of coffee. Maybe. But if you ask me to write about—say—chicken coops, I’d be as stuck as anyone. Or I’d end up writing about God through chicken coops. (Here’s a trick: if you’re stuck writing about something uninteresting, try tying it into something you care about. That might just give you what you need.)

When is a piece done? Pretty much whenever it feels like it—you’ll intuit this.

Omit needless words, unless they sound pretty.

In other words, write with your ear. I know about as much about English rules as I do music theory—which is to say, a little, but not enough to teach a course on it. I play guitar by ear; I write by ear. I hear how things sound in my head. If it sounds good, I keep it. If it sounds clunky, I tinker with it—even if that means breaking some rules. (Eddie Van Halen’s advice is the only fully reliable rule: if it sounds good, it is good.)

Here’s probably the most important thing: Try to write at least six to seven thousand words a day if you want to get good at writing. Good doesn’t necessarily mean great—hate to break it to you, but greatness usually comes down to natural talent. The good news, though, is that almost anyone can get good at writing with enough practice.

Of course, telling people to get better at writing is like telling them to get better at pull-ups by doing pull-ups—it’s a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Here’s how it goes:

“I want to get better at pull-ups.”
“OK, do pull-ups.”
“But I can’t do any pull-ups.”
“OK, then do pull-ups!”

See the problem? It’s a paradox. You have to do the thing you want to get better at—something you can’t do yet—to actually get better at it. There’s no “thinking” your way through this. You’ve just got to grind. Sit your ass in the chair and write. Just like the person who overanalyzes how to get their first pull-up, obsessing over (mostly useless) progressions and lead-ins, when what they really need to do is hang from the bar and put everything they’ve got into getting that chin over—again and again and again.

Honestly, most people can’t write a lot because they don’t write a lot, and they don’t write a lot because they feel like they can’t. There’s only one way out: write more! It’ll be a struggle at first, but so what? People who crank out pull-ups with slickness and ease once struggled, too. Good guitarists couldn’t play a single note, and then they could. Our bodies and brains are weird—magical, even—they figure things out when you keep forcing them into action, even if you can’t do it yet.

So, trust the process or believe in magic, or both. Write as much as you can every day, even if most of it is crap (and yeah, most of it will be). Over time, you’ll get the hang of it, words will start flowing easier, and one day, you’ll look back and wonder what the big deal was.

Read the people you want to write like. Good writing is—largely—imitation. If you want to write funny, read Mark Twain or Ring Lardner. If you want to write academic philosophy, read Alexander Pruss or Elizabeth Anscombe.

Good writing isn’t just good editing; it’s having a good editor. My writing is best—clearest and crispest—when my wife edits it. Having worked with many editors, I can tell you they’re hit or miss. Some will make your writing soar, while others will make it sound like puke. ChatGPT can help—sort of, sometimes—but you have to be careful not to let it ruin your style, which it can easily do. Never—ever—let AI write for you. That, of course, will only make you worse at writing because you’re outsourcing the activity. (Nobody gets better at music by asking someone else to play their instrument for them, or stronger by asking somebody else to lift their weights!) At most, have the robot suggest edits, and you decide which to accept and which to decline.

Don’t force things—humor, cleverness, etc. Let these come naturally when the moment invites them. If you're energetic, in the flow, and feeling good, when the humorous moment strikes, it will work, and people will laugh because it won’t feel contrived. If you try to be funny or clever, almost certainly you won’t be either. Little is worse than reading somebody who is trying to be funny or clever and not succeeding.

Ignore most books on writing—there are really only two good ones: On Writing Well and The Elements of Style, and plenty of awful ones (the worst, by far, is Steven Pinker’s). You’ll learn far more about writing well by reading great writing, avoiding bad writing, and simply trying to emulate the former.

So, that’s the craft of writing (I could say more, and maybe someday I will). Now, a few bits of advice on the profession.

If you want to publish (come December, my sixth book will be out), you have to be daring. You not only need to write a lot, but you also need to pitch a lot and get used to rejection. I’m probably luckier than most in that I haven’t been rejected thousands of times, but I’ve definitely been rejected hundreds of times or close to. Success in publishing requires decent writing chops but, more than anything, a willingness to play the numbers game—to be doggedly persistent. Take the good feedback, ignore the bad, and learn to tell the difference.

Be friendly and easy to work with. Even if your editor is a huge pain, do your work in a timely manner and thank them for their contributions—you don’t want a reputation for being a huge pain yourself. There have been only a few times—two that I can think of—where I exploded at editors because something truly unprofessional happened. Otherwise, no matter how annoyed I am, I show up, do my job, thank those around me, and move on. Editors like people who are good, but they also like people who are reliable and easy to work with. A lot of people are good—far fewer are also reliable and easy to work with.

Finally, keep a blog. The best way to get material for publishable articles and books is to have a relatively low-pressure place where you can sketch and refine ideas while receiving immediate feedback from people. Put stuff out regularly, “field test it” if you like, and see how people respond and whether it’s worth investing more effort into. A considerable amount of the material in my books and articles began as short little blog posts—I saw they resonated, or I just really liked the idea, or both, and felt I could take it further.