I often see people who say they want to write more often and the solutions they come up with are basically along the lines of “you have to work through your suffering.” This is actually the case for most creative works and the general principles apply to most of them, such as painting, poetry, music, design, etc. I take a different approach than this masochistic protestant work ethic. I use my SEEP system to make it so I write more frequently, and it’s a lot more painless and indeed, actually enjoyable (that being the second E in the SEEP system).
In summary, the approach is to: satisfice on polish, do it when you’re inspired, and make it short. A way to remember this is the acronym PISh. To get it to really stick in your head, remember an imaginary conversation with a person who says that writing is really hard and you reply, “Pish posh! Writing is delightful, dear boy!” (In this scenario you are an eccentric British writer sipping tea and talking to squirrels of course.) You could even add, “You simply have to let the habit SEEP into your life” and reuse the memorization tool I developed for the SEEP system.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the explanation of the actual points.
- Make it short. Write short posts! You aren’t in high school anymore where you have a certain word count you need to achieve. Some of my posts are just one or two paragraphs and that’s totally fine. The rules you think exist only exist in your head. There are no walls. Nobody will punish you and give you an F for writing something concise. In fact, people often just want short answers to questions. Don’t be that person who has five hundred words of introductory text before you get to the actual answers. Don’t be that guy. Another benefit of this is that you can sit down and pound out and publish a post in one sitting, making it much more satisfying.
- Do it when you’re inspired. This is the opposite of what most people suggest, which is to write every day no matter what. Just grit your teeth and embrace the grind. Maybe this is necessary if you have a grand ambitious project, but even then, I’m not sure. However, if you’re writing for a hobby blog, a story you release piecemeal, or for an organization that only needs a post between once and four times a month, you can probably wait until inspiration hits. Not only will you then write faster, you’ll also enjoy it. This has two benefits. The first is that enjoying something is a good in and of itself. The second is that it makes you more likely to have positive associations with writing, making you get inspired more frequently, thus making you write more, both in the short and long term.
- If you can, 80/20 grammar and editing. Few people like the endless process of editing again and again. If you want to retain your love of writing and do so more prolifically, sacrifice that annoying 20% of grammar and style that costs you 80% of your time. I tend to just run over my writing twice. Once after I’ve done my first draft and second after I’ve put it on the website, the latter of which is mostly for making sure the formatting didn’t do something weird. Sometimes you shouldn’t do this, such as when you’re a professional editor or in extremely high stakes writing (such as grant writing). However, for many cases, you really don’t need to strive for perfection. Sure, some people will be annoyed because you put a comma before a coordinating conjunction for a dependent clause, but honestly, life is too short. And it’s too short for the grammar Nazis too. Don’t waste your life editing instead of creating, on satisfying grumpy internet trolls instead of yourself and the rest of your more laidback audience. Satisfice in life. You’ll be happier for it.
So there you go: write short posts when you’re inspired with 80/20 grammar. The overall principles behind this being: make it short, do it when you’re excited to, and satisfice on polish.
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