on writing
People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas.
A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:
A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:
- Counter-intuitive —
julian.com • Writing Handbook: How to Source Writing Ideas
Bernadette Mayer's Writing Experiments
writing.upenn.edu
We are writers, and we never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don’t know.
Stephen King • On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue))
One of the mirages that resides in many books today, of course, for him and for many of us, is the idea of its author being a “middle class writer.” That appellation seems somewhat fantastical, something borne of secret inheritances and side hustles. Becoming one has become the literary version of the illusory American Dream. It rhymes with the “do
... See moreDirt • Dirt: Cutting Class
cafes really should have a ‘newsletter of the week’ noticeboard because half the people in them are probably writing substacks