3 ms·

2017 I had the new year's resolution to write one blogpost a week. Now, I'm making all of my income from technical writing. Consistency is key. With that said

by k__ 4y ago

2017 I had the new year's resolution to write one blogpost a week. Now, I'm making all of my income from technical writing. Consistency is key. With that said, less is more. Stephen King said, he writes 6 pages a day, which is probably too much for most people. But one page a day should be doable.

sagarpatil 4y ago
Do you write a blog? Could you share any links to ‘How can I get better at technical writing’?
- k__ 4y ago
  Not really, sorry. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and one day companies approached me to pay me for articles. Later, I worked with editors and tried to learn from what they edited in my articles.
komali2 4y ago
One of my favorite videos is when George RR Martin asks Stephen King on stage, "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 Stephen King answers basically with the same advice he's always given, as you said, he tries to write 6 pages a day. In the video, he says he tries to get 3-4 hours of work a day, and get to that 6 pages. He breaks it down, "if the manuscript is x length, it will take y months to finish." George RR Martin goes on to ask essentially, "but what if writer's block? What if internet distraction? What if something comes up?" He goes on to tell a story about Rowling that basically resolves with "nobody really understands what writers do," but based on King's own "On Writing," I think he does claim to understand, and his tips are not really any different from how you generate content in any other medium, methods that those of us terminally online HN types are at this point experts via headlines alone, we see so many posts on the subject. The method is demonstrated in the "6 pages" quote that gets thrown around: define the objective (write a book), break the objective into estimable and achievable goals (write 6 pages a day: this allows for book length x to be finished in y months), and set dedicated, distraction-free time to achieve the day's goal (as I recall from "On Writing," King has a dedicated writing office and doesn't bring his phone into it, and doesn't have internet access in there. I may be remembering incorrectly or mixing up my absurd breadth of reading I've done on the general topic of staying focused). Meanwhile GRRM, for all his undeniable success, talent, and skill, talks about the act of writing in kinda the same way an amateur might, or maybe just the way an artist might, a sort of mystical "waiting for the muse" type style. "What if I just don't wanna write?" King's answer, and the answer of many prolific artists, programmers, etc, that I've read, would be "why are you whether you want to write or not? You have today's goal already, so, achieve it." The wanting is irrelevant, the muse is unneeded, you've broken down the task, go do today's TODO list. Are you going to re-justify for yourself every single day the overall objective? Well, tbh, I do like that as a mindfulness self-affirmation exercise sometimes, but the point is you can't just sit around waiting to want to do the small part of the larger objective, you gotta just put the hours in day after day. I think a lot of us across all disciplines are missing that key skill in production: project management, I think I'd call it. The most prolific artists are the ones who grabbed that skill and added it to the toolset as a discipline-agnostic ability. Hence why when King talks about his method it sounds the same to me as what I've read here from programmers, what I've seen on youtube from animators, and what I've heard on podcasts from musicians.
- the_d3f4ult 4y ago
  Great point. A quote I like that’s more succinct: “Amateurs wait for inspiration, professionals just show up and get to work.”
- klelatti 4y ago
  Thank you for this post, which captures what I think is a key issue for many. I wonder though if there is a reluctance to adopt an approach similar to King's because people are wary (possibly subconsciously) of killing their enjoyment of the process: 'Don't turn your hobby into a job' is advice that you hear a lot. Perhaps those who are prolific have their eyes more on the end result (a good book in 3 months) rather than the act of writing and that helps them deal with this as well as being more generally motivating to produce good work.
  - k__ 4y ago
    You have to get something out of it. It's the best when the process alone makes you happy, but this isn't usually the case 100% of the time. The next best thing is getting results. Either because you like what you created or other people like it. Writing my 50 blogposts in 2017 wasn't always fun, but some of them got thousands of views.
- verzeichnis 4y ago
  Steven Pressfield summed this up for me in his book The War Of Art. It’s basically that distinction between a Pro and an Amateur that you are making. The Pro sits down and does the work, the Amateur waits till they feel like it.
bambax 4y ago
Ian Fleming wrote 2000 words per day and was able to produce a v1 of a novel in 6 weeks. This appeared on HN a couple of weeks ago: https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thriller/ https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thril... I read Casino Royale (the first Bond installment) for the first time last week; it's quite good and fast-paced. The chapters follow the 2000 words rule quite closely, and it's working.

by k__ 4y ago

sagarpatil 4y ago

Do you write a blog? Could you share any links to ‘How can I get better at technical writing’?

k__ 4y ago
Not really, sorry. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and one day companies approached me to pay me for articles. Later, I worked with editors and tried to learn from what they edited in my articles.

komali2 4y ago

One of my favorite videos is when George RR Martin asks Stephen King on stage, "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 Stephen King answers basically with the same advice he's always given, as you said, he tries to write 6 pages a day. In the video, he says he tries to get 3-4 hours of work a day, and get to that 6 pages. He breaks it down, "if the manuscript is x length, it will take y months to finish." George RR Martin goes on to ask essentially, "but what if writer's block? What if internet distraction? What if something comes up?" He goes on to tell a story about Rowling that basically resolves with "nobody really understands what writers do," but based on King's own "On Writing," I think he does claim to understand, and his tips are not really any different from how you generate content in any other medium, methods that those of us terminally online HN types are at this point experts via headlines alone, we see so many posts on the subject. The method is demonstrated in the "6 pages" quote that gets thrown around: define the objective (write a book), break the objective into estimable and achievable goals (write 6 pages a day: this allows for book length x to be finished in y months), and set dedicated, distraction-free time to achieve the day's goal (as I recall from "On Writing," King has a dedicated writing office and doesn't bring his phone into it, and doesn't have internet access in there. I may be remembering incorrectly or mixing up my absurd breadth of reading I've done on the general topic of staying focused). Meanwhile GRRM, for all his undeniable success, talent, and skill, talks about the act of writing in kinda the same way an amateur might, or maybe just the way an artist might, a sort of mystical "waiting for the muse" type style. "What if I just don't wanna write?" King's answer, and the answer of many prolific artists, programmers, etc, that I've read, would be "why are you whether you want to write or not? You have today's goal already, so, achieve it." The wanting is irrelevant, the muse is unneeded, you've broken down the task, go do today's TODO list. Are you going to re-justify for yourself every single day the overall objective? Well, tbh, I do like that as a mindfulness self-affirmation exercise sometimes, but the point is you can't just sit around waiting to want to do the small part of the larger objective, you gotta just put the hours in day after day. I think a lot of us across all disciplines are missing that key skill in production: project management, I think I'd call it. The most prolific artists are the ones who grabbed that skill and added it to the toolset as a discipline-agnostic ability. Hence why when King talks about his method it sounds the same to me as what I've read here from programmers, what I've seen on youtube from animators, and what I've heard on podcasts from musicians.

the_d3f4ult 4y ago
Great point. A quote I like that’s more succinct: “Amateurs wait for inspiration, professionals just show up and get to work.”
klelatti 4y ago
Thank you for this post, which captures what I think is a key issue for many. I wonder though if there is a reluctance to adopt an approach similar to King's because people are wary (possibly subconsciously) of killing their enjoyment of the process: 'Don't turn your hobby into a job' is advice that you hear a lot. Perhaps those who are prolific have their eyes more on the end result (a good book in 3 months) rather than the act of writing and that helps them deal with this as well as being more generally motivating to produce good work.
- k__ 4y ago
  You have to get something out of it. It's the best when the process alone makes you happy, but this isn't usually the case 100% of the time. The next best thing is getting results. Either because you like what you created or other people like it. Writing my 50 blogposts in 2017 wasn't always fun, but some of them got thousands of views.
verzeichnis 4y ago
Steven Pressfield summed this up for me in his book The War Of Art. It’s basically that distinction between a Pro and an Amateur that you are making. The Pro sits down and does the work, the Amateur waits till they feel like it.

bambax 4y ago

Ian Fleming wrote 2000 words per day and was able to produce a v1 of a novel in 6 weeks. This appeared on HN a couple of weeks ago: https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thriller/ https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thril... I read Casino Royale (the first Bond installment) for the first time last week; it's quite good and fast-paced. The chapters follow the 2000 words rule quite closely, and it's working.