All That There is to Know About The Writing Craft.
things we learn from Orhan Pamuk, Austin Kleon, and Paul Graham!
Dear Reader,
It has been a while now!
While I regularly update my blog with some interesting essays, I find it challenging to push out newsletters similarly. Nevertheless, I will continue to write more newsletters over time. It is also a space for me to engage with my readers more personally. I want to tell them how I develop ideas for my blog and what I write about them.
This week, I chose to write about writing stuff.
In the last few months and weeks, I have been reading about writing — and writing about writing. Specifically, I have read recently about Austin Kleon’s two books, Orhan Pamuk’s New Yorker essay on writing and Paul Graham’s tips for writing.
Things Orhan Pamuk tells us about writing.
The first author I introduce here today is Orhan Pamuk.
I stumbled upon Orhan Pamuk’s essay in the New Yorker through my PhD supervisor, Roland Bleiker (who himself spends significant time training his students in writing). Here is a link to a video of Roland’s tips for writing in social sciences.
Titled “My Father’s Suitcase”, Pamuk’s essay seeks to come to terms with what it is like to be a writer. In the article, Pamuk talks about his father—and his efforts at being a writer (and Pamuk’s uneasiness with it). Apart from the lucid structure in which it is written, Pamuk tells us that to write is to struggle.
Orhan Pamuk admits, “I am not that interesting”.
To be a writer, my PhD supervisor tells me, is to feel introverted, to be boring, and to hook oneself onto books.
Likewise, Pamuk writes, “I would like to see myself as belonging to the tradition of writers who—wherever they are in the world, East or West—cut themselves off from society and shut themselves up in their rooms with their books; this is the starting point of true literature.”
Orhan writes: “The writer’s secret is not inspiration—for it is never clear where that comes from—but stubbornness, endurance. The lovely Turkish expression ‘to dig a well with a needle’ seems to me to have been invented with writers in mind.”
Pamuk adds that, as a writer, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There is everything already in place. You have to make sure to write “of things that we all know but do not know that we know.”
Pamuk writes: “A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is.”
Read my full essay: To Write Like Orhan Pamuk is to Struggle Through Writing.
Austin Kleon tells us to show our work.
The second writer I want to discuss here is Austin Kleon.
I recently read two brilliant books, Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon. One of my close friends from graduation suggested that I read them once. And he wasn’t wrong about how much I enjoyed reading these two short books.
On stealing
Kleon asks: Why is it essential to steal like an artist? To steal like an artist to become an artist oneself. If you aren’t an artist still, you may as well pretend like one (and steal!). For Austin, every artist steals something—from others.
There is no originality. And those who claim that you are original don’t understand that all ideas have a previous life—and one can only be drawn on from others.
We become what we are due to our internalisation and socialisation of the world. But not everything may be worth stealing. As an artist, you need to be able to tell the difference between what is worth stealing and what is not.
Here are some 10 tips Kleon has on stealing like an artist:
Kleon also has something to tell us about writing. He tells us not just to write anything but what we truly like. Write something we genuinely want to read. Writing something (or an eternal dilemma: What should I write?) is challenging as it is. But, if you write what you like, much of your life gets simpler.
Read the full essay on Austin Kleon’s 10 tips to steal like an artist.
Now, on showing your work.
Writing is something. Most of us can write if we put in a bit of work (and no, not everyone is a good writer!). But, once after we have written, we also need to make sure that what we have written is read-worthy—or is available for readers to read.
This is where Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work comes to your rescue. In this work, Kleon asks: How does one get their stuff out there? How do you get noticed? What is your audience, and how do you attract them?
It is not enough to be a good writer; one has to be findable. One’s work should stand out among the rest of the works. Originality helps. But there are lots of other essential things you have to do.
Here are some 10 tips Kleon has on showing your work to the world:
Each of these notes suggests that we must think in terms of process and not at the final product. We are only as good as the last thing we write. We can take chances. If we treat writing as a process, we won’t worry about what happens with one product. We will aim to improve ourselves every once in a while. We learn to do it better each time.
Read the full essay on Kleon’s tips to show your work.
Paul Graham tells us to write simply.
The third and final author for today’s newsletter is Paul Graham.
Paul is an interesting case. He is a prominent face in the tech world. He has helped build businesses most of his life. His startup accelerator, Y-Combinator, has funded Airbnb and Reddit, among others. Many entrepreneurs have, admittedly, read him over the years.
For Paul, writing is a crucial way of thinking about ideas. He has written on tech, philosophy, writing, and startup culture, among other things.
Writing simply just means using simple language, simple words, and simple sentences. Graham writes: “I try to write using ordinary words… [And] that kind of writing is easier to read, and the easier something is to read, the more deeply readers will engage with it.
I write academic journal articles. Barely anyone picks it up and reads it. But my blog—it circulates (unconsciously) across internet. Why? I don’t say deeply insightful stuff on my blog, but it still circulates, whereas an essay I would have written, say, for International Affairs, like this one, barely gets read. Simpler things are easier for people to relate to. They can learn through simpler things.
Paul tells us that we have to write in simple language. We don’t have to use flowery terms and words that most readers cannot understand. The more complicated you write, the less your readers will get you. Fancy writing, for Graham, conceals the fact that one knows nothing—and they still want to say something even when they have nothing to say. Writing complex is just a bad habit.
Paul Graham also points us to his writing process here:
Write a bad version 1 as fast as you can;
rewrite it over and over;
cutouteverything unnecessary;
write in a conversational tone;
develop a nose for bad writing, so you can see and fix it in yours;
imitate writers you like;
if you can’t get started, tell someone what you plan to write about, then write down what you said;
expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong;
be confident enough to cut;
have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are confusing or drag;
don’t (always) make detailed outlines;
mull ideas over for a few days before writing;
carry a small notebook or scrap paper with you;
start writing when you think of the first sentence;
if a deadline forces you to start before that, just say the most important sentence first;
write about stuff you like;
don’t try to sound impressive;
don’t hesitate to change the topic on the fly;
use footnotes to contain digressions;
use anaphora to knit sentences together;
read your essays out loud to see (a) where you stumble over awkward phrases and (b) which bits are boring (the paragraphs you dread reading);
try to tell the reader something new and useful;
work in fairly big quanta of time; when you restart, begin by rereading what you have so far;
when you finish, leave yourself something easy to start with;
accumulate notes for topics you plan to cover at the bottom of the file;
don’t feel obliged to cover any of them;
write for a reader who won’t read the essay as carefully as you do, just as pop songs are designed to sound ok on crappy car radios;
if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately;
ask friends which sentence you’ll regret most;
go back and tone down harsh remarks;
publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas;
print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen;
use simple, germanic words;
learn to distinguish surprises from digressions;
learn to recognize the approach of an ending, and when one appears, grab it.
Read the full essay on Paul Graham’s advice on writing here.
Well, this is all I have to write for this week. I hope to read these essays—and find them useful! I also hope to be more regular with my newsletter writing schedule.
Share this with others—and spread the word. Until next time, happy reading :)
Warmly,
Adarsh.