even in the most stressful situations there are some strings of words which jump to our attention and make us dream. if you manage to hold on to this feeling, writing becomes almost a necessity.
take something someone else said that excites your imagination and continue the thought in paper. you don’t have to bookend it with quotation marks, nor mention the author, nor follow the path laid out by the text it originally belonged to.
even though this is the best way to start writing, nothing good will come out of it right away. but don’t despair, remember the first approximation is almost entirely subconscious and you haven’t started writing, or putting your best skill to good use, until you’ve started rewriting.
if you’re writing for school and don’t want to be accused of plagiarism you can rewrite it without the words that you took.
if by the end of this you don’t have enough to fill a postcard, implement more related citations. if you end up with too much, why are you imposing such limits upon yourself? if you aren’t the one who’s imposing them, then you’ve become their butcher and i don’t have advice for butchers.
Related Recs
✏️
When I'm stuck or seem to lack motivation, I often force myself to start putting words on paper.
I just grab a notebook — not a digital device, gotta eliminate escapes and distractions — and start writing. Even if it it begins with "I don't know what the hell to write," at least I'm writing.
Eventually it goes somewhere.
Oct 16, 2024
✍️
to speak is human
one of the most defiant ways that we can assert our power—our not-duplicable, non-algorithmic, dangerous, and history-altering power—is to write.
yes you can feed your prompts into a generative AI chatGPT butthole and it will produce a precise and perfect and appropriate piece of text — but that isn't you!
it isn't you to have apple intelligence or google fartelligence rewrite your emails or text messages or essays or love letters
It is you to drag your pen across paper, or cursor blinking on screen—to discover, question, argue alone, to know yourself.
It is you to write what you shouldn't write—what you aren't allowed to say. To consider the impossible, the illegal or immoral, to wrestle with those things that others would censor or suppress.
It is you to yearn, love, grieve through writing: to gift yourself, and maybe others too, that record of your pain and beauty and dynamism.
Oct 5, 2024
😃
In university, I needed a really strict environmental setup to even think about starting an essay. I needed my water bottle, a good table in the library, enough sleep, and a full belly. The library had to be quiet, and in more extreme cases, I even brought earplugs.
Lately, during my lunch hour at my nine-to-five job, I've been using the time to write, often tucked away or sitting on the floor around the office. I tap away at whatever I can get down, to later return to and edit. I have to take these stolen moments. I'm too hazy in the morning to write, and too tired of looking at screens in the evening. Weekends are often sacred for friends and rest. I think, for many of us, the new habit of writing won’t be glorious, long-haul manic frenzies. It’ll be about taking sips here and there, getting down on the page whatever we can.
Sep 18, 2024
