2026-01-19
When I start my timer to write these entries, a small fear likes to return. I'll sit down and start writing, but then realize that I have nothing to say. I'll realize it, the timer will keep going, and then it'll stop. I'll see the notification that time's up and only see a few words on the screen. I still have this fear today, even after all of the times I've succeeded in spite of it.
There's a certain level of perfectionism that's present while I write. The urge to constantly self-edit is a difficult one to fight. Even now, it chews on every sentence. I tend to forget that there's always time to revise later—that it's better to revise when the sentences are already written.
A great piece of advice came from Jerry Seinfeld. When it came to his writing process, he said that you need to harness two people. The first is a baby. Babies don't know anything and they haven't experienced failure, so they're open to new ideas. This openness is what gets the ideas out of your head and onto the page. Nurture that baby so you consistently have ideas. The second is a relentless adult critic. This one eliminates all the baby's bad ideas. It also takes the ideas that were almost good enough and whips them into shape. With these two sides of yourself harnessed, you can produce good writing.
So with that, I try to be the baby while I'm drafting: pure openness. The most important thing this helps with is instinct. It's important to hone instinct because without it, the writing is devoid of soul. With the prevalence of LLMs, people are sick and tired of robotic and overly polished prose.
The roughness makes it real.
I know that I've spent a lot of time harnessing the relentless critic. Perfectionism is a tough character flaw to compensate for, but this practice has helped with it. I've found that when I just write what's on the top of my head, there's usually something there. When I'm out and about in the world, the thoughts are there too—a reliable internal dialogue.
So why not bring that here and make it tangible?
Structure is something that I struggle with as a writer. I'm afraid of losing coherence, so I write short. The longest piece I've written is around 7,000 words. Even then, I added too many unnecessary details. I'm often annoyingly verbose. In essays, I'll repeat myself too much. In fiction, I add needless plot. I'll have something written, feel proud for a while, then find some way to cut it in half.
Of course, I'm mature enough to know that tracking words isn't a direct measure of improvement. In fact, most writers I know focus too heavily on word count. Younger writers will pour out hundreds of thousands of words into their first novel or two, often without a single revision. The result is an absolute chore to read. I've seen books that are 70% dialogue. I've read prose so purple, you could've swore it was a grape soda.
This isn't to say that I'm more enlightened than other writers. Those writers have something I don't: a better baby. Their openness is an important thing and it's something that I still openly covet. I still fear writing anything longer than 10,000 words. I tell myself that I still need to "learn how to finish right" and to a certain extent that's true, but I still get paralyzed enough to not even start.
I also convince myself that I need to have every detail planned out ahead of time. Then, I obsess over the planning until nothing actually materializes. I've come to understand I don't need an outline to write anything. All I need is commitment and good judgment. Successful novelists share a practice: in a given writing session, they'll spend the first half revising yesterday's material and the second half writing new stuff. I've attempted it before, but revert to revising right when I'm done. That's usually what I do with these entries too.
It's easy to see why one would wait until the next day to revise. If you give your mind time to rest for a while, your revisions will improve. But I like to revise when the timer stops. In immediate revisions, it can be easy to overthink everything, get obsessive, and burn out faster.
My only problem is that I like being obsessive.