On Reading and Writing

If you only read and don’t write, you are doing it wrong.

It is unnecessary to repeat the advantages of writing down your thoughts or journaling but to address the common challenges that prevent people from doing so. As far as my memory goes, I read a lot and wrote almost none when I was younger. I had the imagination to write down my thoughts, but I found it too much work or not worth the time. In hindsight, I was just scared and did not know where to start.

I also imagined writing a book recording my thoughts, maybe at 15. Not until I finished college and worked for a year did I first pick up Ulysses and start writing at 23. Did the meantime of eight years nurture my thoughts and make me good at writing? Absolutely not.

The interesting thing about writing is that you only get better by doing it more, not by daydreaming or reading tips online. But where do you start when you are an absolute beginner? It turns out, yes, the first ten pieces of your writing should be a POS, and you should accept that. This fact is largely dismissed and ignored by online experts who give tips and try to sell you writing courses to help you become a writer overnight. I don’t have a writing course to sell you, so I would tell you the one important tip about writing, start and write some craps.

I remember the day I started writing on Ulysses; I did not even know where to start. Should I write an argumentative essay, a fiction, or a more researched opinion? Well, as we all should, I wrote about my day and some random thoughts at the end since I wanted to achieve the goal of “just writing something.” The merely two hundred words I wrote were messy and low quality, and I gave all I had. Gradually, writing after a hot shower before bed became my writing ritual. Writing down my thoughts and arguments just seemed natural as my entrepreneurship journey went. Shower thoughts turned into short essays of around seven hundred words every day. In less than six months, I had a list of articles that could easily be compiled as a non-fiction book, and of course, my first essay was dismissed.

If you are an avid reader like me, another advantage of writing is that, at a certain point, you will read what you have written, which is a fantastic experience. Things I wrote a few years ago seem incredibly stupid as I have gained more experience. The good thing is that I now have a topic to write about, which seems like a no-brainer BOGO (Buy-One-Get-One) situation.