My favorite dinosaur is the Saurus
Years ago, I worked for a small company to churn out dozens of similar articles per day to increase their Google rankings across all of the sites they owned.
In other words, I was forced paid to write the same article a dozen times or more so long as I effectively said the same thing but with different words.
Finally, my younger days of reading dictionaries and thesauruses for fun were paying off.
I can’t say I always enjoyed the work.
But the daily ritual of rewriting myself made me a better writer. I became faster at calculating the dozens of permutations any sentence could have.
Fortunately, at least for that brief period, the permutations didn’t matter. Because I was writing for Google, quantity trumped quality.
But you don’t have that luxury.
So here’s the advice you already know (and may despise): writing is rewriting.
If you struggle with this, try this:
Write 200 words on anything you’d like in your typical style.
Wait a day.
Rewrite that 200 words as if you’re writing to a second grader. (Check yourself by running it through the Hemingway App to see your reading level score.)
Wait a day.
Rewrite your initial essay in the style of your favorite author.
Wait a day.
Rewrite your original essay and see if any lessons from your rewrites enhance your original version.
Your first rewrite should have helped you with concision and simplicity.
Your second rewrite should have helped you with tone and voice.
Combining those characteristics is essential to great writing.
But if that’s too much work to ask, just remember:
"Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words." —Mark Twain
Better Writing Advice
📖 Must read
Before You Hire a Developmental Editor: What You Need to Know
Courtesy of Jane Friedman, Sangeeta Mehta hosted this Q&A with two other editors discussing the specifics of developmental editing. Julie Scheina offers the best definition: “Developmental editing is any editorial feedback that helps the author strengthen and develop their manuscript between the initial draft and when the manuscript is ready for copyediting, proofreading, and publication. Different editors may call this substantive, structural, comprehensive, or content editing—to my knowledge they all mean basically the same thing.”
They go beyond definitions too. When should you hire a developmental editor? Should you hire someone in your genre? What experience should you look for? The editors in the Q&A focus on fiction, but the advice applies to nonfiction authors as well.
P.S. I developmentally edit nonfiction. If you have a follow-up question about developmental editing (or you have something in the works that may be ready for outside help), just reply to this email.
P.P.S. If you’re not already following everything Jane Friedman publishes, fix that ASAP. And if you want the best email newsletter about publishing, subscribe to The Hot Sheet. It’s a paid subscription, but it’s one of the few I gladly pay for.
🎧 Must listen
From Truck Driver to Bestselling Novelist, Overcoming Self-Sabotage, Momentum, and Turning Pro
Ever since I read The War of Art more than a decade ago, I’ve followed Steven Pressfield’s work as an outflow of my appreciation for the deep encouragement I received from his writing.
At the time of this writing, I’ve only listened to 26 minutes of this interview, but I’ve already gleaned ideas for future newsletters and have been inspired to just keep at this ridiculous thing we call writing.
This interview is also available on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast.
P.S. What’s your #1 favorite writing podcast right now? (Again, just hit reply!)
🤖 Must beware
The truth is - the entire thread was written by an AI.
Don’t worry. This email wasn’t written by AI (at least not yet).
But Ali Abdaal conducted an experiment on Twitter where he tweeted a thread with 15 productivity hacks—and it became his highest-performing tweet ever.
He didn’t mention upfront that most of the thread was AI-driven.
He used an AI-enabled writing app built on the same technology that powers ChatGPT, which blew up on Twitter this week, and which you should absolutely experiment with while it’s still free.
Recommended read
Atomic Habits by James Clear
I did, in fact, have another book chosen.
But, as of the writing of this email the day before it’s sent, the hardcover version of Atomic Habits is more than 50% off at Amazon.
It’s an incredible book and well deserving of its vaulted status of nearly 90,000 ratings with an average of five stars.
When I worked on an early version of Habits to whittle 150,000 words (I think) down to something more consumable, I loved the work because I was gaining such helpful advice.
And anyone can quickly tell that James had put in the work of consistently showing up to write for a decade before launching his “overnight” success.
Atomic Habits is an excellent read (or reread) for writers.
If you’re not in the ongoing habit of writing, can you truly call yourself a writer?
I think it’s time for me to reread it too.
Housekeeping
You’re (very likely) receiving this email because you subscribed to my Revue-hosted email years ago. On the same day I chose to resurrect this newsletter recently, Revue announced it was shutting down! So I ported my list to Substack, and here we find ourselves. If you’re no longer interested in being on this list, you may subscribe via the link in the footer. And no hard feelings!
“The Saurus” was created in Lexica Aperture, a site powered by Stable Diffusion, aka an AI image generator.
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