My performance and productivity improved so much since I stopped using social media and detoxed completely from Twitter and other FOMO-inducing platforms. Instead of wasting time watching and comparing oneself to other people (whose actual results are unknown as so much on social media is fake), it's much better to play your own game and focus on improving your craft every day.
Great piece Trung - thanks for putting it together👏 FWIW I've been using this distillation of the same ethos for my own work - 'Only write essays that you would enjoy reading, safe in the assumption that there are probably millions of people on the Internet who enjoy the same things you do'
Though I get the idea of writing for oneself, another part of me sees this advice in similar light as "follow your passion" -- famously discounted by Scott Galloway. There are a select few who write because they feel internally compelled to do so. Jack London wrote 50 books in 17 years. He was a force of nature. Here is what Wikipedia has for Jack London: "He saw his writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty and, he hoped, as a means of beating the wealthy at their own game." I wonder does Michael Lewis write for himself? Did Michael Chrichton? Some novelists only find out how a story will end by writing it, so in that sense, they might be writing for themselves, though with the audience in mind as tacit knowledge, a skill in their fingertips. Some authors have a vague idea or feeling about a topic, and find they can only work it out and uncover the soundness/ramifications through writing an essay. Are they doing it for themselves? Perhaps, though the starting point could be initiated on behest of others.
By the way, if you're writing up a résumé for a job, please write for the audience!
1. Regarding the CV, I did want to flag this one line in the article: “(note: this is specific to creative work; if you’re copywriting a DTC product or putting together an analyst report for an investment, it is obviously important to prioritize your audience’s perspective)”
2. More generally, nit even sure we totally disagree on main points. The audience comes second in the examples you gave. Michael Lewis wrote liars poker because he hated his job and actually wanted to be a writer. Michael Chrichton famously wrote books under a pen name while working full time as a doctor. Not sure you can get more internally motivated than that. His deep interest in science informed most of the books.
Certainly it’s possible to take on projects “for money” and many do. But even then they can create the work for themself first — trusting their own taste is what the audience will want as the end product.
After some days of thinking more about this, I doubt I agree with you. Or maybe I'm confused? My impression from an interview with Michael Lewis ("Michael Lewis in Conversation on the Art of Writing") is that he keenly calculates how to be effective for an audience. Lewis does say [skip to 22:00] that writers may forget about the audience, but this can be a mistake. Furthermore, writers may unconsciously have an abstract reader in mind, one who has sufficient vocabulary, one who shares culture sufficiently to understand references. A related topic (I live not far from a well known writer's workshop) is how to develop a "voice", eg https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/7qadm6/how_to_find_your_writing_voice/ My conclusion is that this is not a black-and-white thing, there are few purists. I recall hearing a poet explain that he woke from dreams and wrote down what happened in the dream; in effect, he claimed that he wasn't really the author of his work.
Well written and so true.
My performance and productivity improved so much since I stopped using social media and detoxed completely from Twitter and other FOMO-inducing platforms. Instead of wasting time watching and comparing oneself to other people (whose actual results are unknown as so much on social media is fake), it's much better to play your own game and focus on improving your craft every day.
Appreciatie the read, Michael! With you on social. I’m pretty addicted tbh, but need the unplugging to do proper deep work
Great piece Trung - thanks for putting it together👏 FWIW I've been using this distillation of the same ethos for my own work - 'Only write essays that you would enjoy reading, safe in the assumption that there are probably millions of people on the Internet who enjoy the same things you do'
Thanks for the read, Rahul! That’s a very similar philosophy. You can definitely tell when a writer enjoys the topic they are writing about (or not).
Though I get the idea of writing for oneself, another part of me sees this advice in similar light as "follow your passion" -- famously discounted by Scott Galloway. There are a select few who write because they feel internally compelled to do so. Jack London wrote 50 books in 17 years. He was a force of nature. Here is what Wikipedia has for Jack London: "He saw his writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty and, he hoped, as a means of beating the wealthy at their own game." I wonder does Michael Lewis write for himself? Did Michael Chrichton? Some novelists only find out how a story will end by writing it, so in that sense, they might be writing for themselves, though with the audience in mind as tacit knowledge, a skill in their fingertips. Some authors have a vague idea or feeling about a topic, and find they can only work it out and uncover the soundness/ramifications through writing an essay. Are they doing it for themselves? Perhaps, though the starting point could be initiated on behest of others.
By the way, if you're writing up a résumé for a job, please write for the audience!
Thanks for the read Ted!
1. Regarding the CV, I did want to flag this one line in the article: “(note: this is specific to creative work; if you’re copywriting a DTC product or putting together an analyst report for an investment, it is obviously important to prioritize your audience’s perspective)”
2. More generally, nit even sure we totally disagree on main points. The audience comes second in the examples you gave. Michael Lewis wrote liars poker because he hated his job and actually wanted to be a writer. Michael Chrichton famously wrote books under a pen name while working full time as a doctor. Not sure you can get more internally motivated than that. His deep interest in science informed most of the books.
Certainly it’s possible to take on projects “for money” and many do. But even then they can create the work for themself first — trusting their own taste is what the audience will want as the end product.
After some days of thinking more about this, I doubt I agree with you. Or maybe I'm confused? My impression from an interview with Michael Lewis ("Michael Lewis in Conversation on the Art of Writing") is that he keenly calculates how to be effective for an audience. Lewis does say [skip to 22:00] that writers may forget about the audience, but this can be a mistake. Furthermore, writers may unconsciously have an abstract reader in mind, one who has sufficient vocabulary, one who shares culture sufficiently to understand references. A related topic (I live not far from a well known writer's workshop) is how to develop a "voice", eg https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/7qadm6/how_to_find_your_writing_voice/ My conclusion is that this is not a black-and-white thing, there are few purists. I recall hearing a poet explain that he woke from dreams and wrote down what happened in the dream; in effect, he claimed that he wasn't really the author of his work.
Thanks for the follow up, Ted! Will check out the sources you flagged and always appreciate the feedback 🙏