Spoiler alert: it’s all about organizing what they wrote in the past, finding it later, and remixing it into something they need in the moment. ðŸ§
Austin Kleon, Indexing, filing systems, and the art of finding what you have: writing is meticulously indexing what you may have jotted down in the past. Come for the bit on classic American authors, stay for Phyllis Diller and Joan River’s massive card catalogs of jokes! 🤯
Cory Doctorow, Writing is accumulation: it’s easy when you accumulate a pile of text files from blogging over twenty years. He searches and surfs tags to find material for whatever he wants to write about today. An external brain.
That’s how blogging is complimentary to other forms of more serious work: when you’ve done enough of it, you can get entire essays, speeches, stories, novels, spontaneously appearing in a state of near-completeness, ready to be written.
Shawn Wang, Mise en Place Writing: writing is like cooking. Separate the preparation/creation and the cooking/editing.
By decoupling writing from pre-writing, I can write more, faster, and better.
Nat Eliason, Tactics to Help You Become a Better Writer: writing is rules. The better your rules, the better (and more) your output.
