The nature and magic of writing
Writing is more than just a record of your thoughts
Many people see writing as a written record of the brainstorming and research process — the final product. This is incorrect. Rather it is a process inextricably intertwined with insight and understanding, and by realizing its full potential we can better use it in our work.
I hope to share with you: 1) why writing is such an important process and; 2) how we can then apply this knowledge in our lives
Writing is THE best medium of thought
Many people have this misconception that writers just have a lot of interesting things to say. This is incorrect, writers actually have a lot of interesting things to say because they write. Writing allows them to develop their thoughts, and structure their thinking in meaningful ways. This leads to the formation of unexpected relationships between ideas — and new ones arising as a result.
It acts as external scaffolding
Writing should act as scaffolding for the entire creation process — from reading to brainstorming to researching and finally to the product. Writing should be the medium wherein this work occurs, and act as a framework to think within when carrying out these tasks. This requires us to think about writing as a means of developing thought, rather than an outcome.
Each sentence supports and represents a thought in our head. By writing we firmly establish all our previous thoughts, allowing us to more effectively build upon our current knowledge, as well as have an external representation of our thoughts which allows us to make connections more easily. These connections allow us to build up a web of knowledge, which can frame new ideas — this is understanding.
Writing builds understanding
By solidifying the ephemeral thoughts floating around in our head we can more easily construct definitive links between this information. We build a concrete web of information in our head and on the page. When a new idea is added it is linked to this web, in the sense that we use preexisting ideas and questions in order to interact with this idea more effectively, applying it to what we know.
This web of ideas represents understanding — using current knowledge to frame new ideas. Being able to assimilate a new idea into our current knowledge more effectively allows us to also learn easier, as building meaningful connections between knowledge is an integral part of the learning process.
Writing facilitates learning
Firstly, writing forces elaboration. You do not write in fleeting sentences, with one or two keywords — such is the nature of our thoughts, however. The brain is very good at deceiving us, even changing our thoughts and memories of them at a whim. By writing something down we allow ourselves to gain distance from it, enabling systematic, objective analysis. This expedites effective learning as we can identify falsehoods and gaps in our thought, and develop a continuous chain of ideas that lead to up to a logical inference. After all, the mark of true learning is how well you can explain it - without making hard to follow leaps in thought.
Furthermore, this web of ideas, a latticework if you like, can be used to interact with new ideas more effectively yes, but also to establish meaningful connections with this information. This is the most effective way to learn. Consider the following extract from How to Take Smart Notes.
Have a look at the following number sequence only once and try to remember it right away: 11 95 82 19 62 31 96 64 19 70 51 97 4. That’s difficult, as it has clearly more than seven digits. But it is quite easy when you realise that these are just five years of the World Cup numbered consecutively. Therefore, you have to remember much less than seven individual items. You only have to remember two — the rule and the starting year.
At first it is very difficult to remember the list of numbers, correct? But knowing the rule we have established a meaningful, shared connection between the information, allowing us to remember it more effectively — it has become more than just a collection of isolated facts. Our latticework of thought allows us to do this same thing — we establish meaningful connections to new ideas — and each connection therefore supports this new information. Our existing ideas act as cues to recall new ones. Since writing has solidified our web of thought, we have an easier time of learning new things and consolidating them into our long term memory.
Writing is a fundamental part of the creation process
By carrying out each step of the creation process in writing, we can more easily translate the products of one step into the next. It acts as a bridge between these processes if done right. It is hard to go directly from research to writing, as you are simultaneously translating the research into the context of your article, trying to understand it, finding the right words and forming arguments. Writing allows us to separate these two processes and then establish a clear link between them — our notes. This makes it easier to carry over the products of research and brainstorming.
By treating writing as a separate process, the outcome of thought, we deprive ourselves of many benefits — capturing more ideas more accurately while we read, fully developing our thoughts and carrying over these products in the same medium, not from thoughts to page.
This change in medium creates friction and detracts from one seamless workflow. By conducting the creation process all in the same medium and context (our own) we can achieve more flow, as the transition from one stage to the next is effortless, as we have already established the groundwork.
Writing is telepathy
I like to think of writing as telepathy in the sense that through writing you can transfer your current thoughts across vast stretches of time and space. It allows you to communicate not only with those geographically far away, but also through time. It allows you to talk with your later self. This is powerful if used properly. It allows for us to more effectively build on current knowledge, not repeating the same learning cycle and finding the same ideas over and over, thinking they are profound due to us having forgotten them. By keeping a concrete record of your thoughts in a system where they can be resurfaced when the need arises we allow our current knowledge to form a solid base for future learning.
Applications of this knowledge
Building a daily ritual
Having a daily writing ritual is a powerful thing. For me it is early in the morning, but find a time that works best for you. I find this ritual cultivates a sort of ‘creative fertility’. During these writing periods I am taking all my thoughts and notes and synthesizing them, drawing new connections and thinking things through. This leads to many new ideas being formed.
Additionally, by writing at a set time and place consistently, our brain will recognize these conditions and associate them with writing and idea generating. You will start to get into this reflective and thoughtful mood naturally, which is a ripe time for having original ideas, and inspired bursts of creativity. It is a truly magical state.
I suggest you check out my post on habits, or one of the many other great ones out there, to help you in this.
Always have pen and paper with you
One very simple, but powerful, thing I started doing a while ago is making sure to always have an easy way to capture ideas, no matter how small. The capturing process should be as simple as possible, reducing friction, and lowering the threshold for recording a thought. It is secondly essential that these notes go somewhere, into some sort of storage system. This capturing of ideas has allowed me to be a lot more creative. I have linked many purportedly disparate ideas later on, all because of me recording them for later review. After all, creativity is just connecting heterogeneous ideas in ways people have not before.
Developing a personal knowledge management system
To make these thoughts truly powerful, one needs to record them in a centralized location. This can be as simple as just getting them all to the same platform. However, as the quantity of your notes increases, you will find the need for a better system. There are plenty out there. I recommend you check out Zettelkasten and the Second Brain.
Writing does not start with the blank page
Writing never starts with a blank page. Thinking it does makes the process infinitely harder for us. Rather, with a good note-taking system in place, the article, or book, is already in our notes — we just need to unearth it. Like a fossil. The key thing here is for us to start taking notes. This allows us to merely have to find the pattern and connections in our notes, rather than trying to draw forth new ones at great expense to our sanity. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so eloquently states:
“To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson — all else will come.”
We need material to write — so start taking notes.
Incorporate writing into your workflow
No matter what you do, writing should not be the product of your work, but its substrate. This is where most work and thinking should take place. You might say— but I am a software developer, writing is useless to me. I beg to differ. Writing is a tool for thought and can be applied anywhere. By writing about what you want a piece of software to do, and how it should do this, you can guide the process more firmly, instead of coding based on a vague idea in your head.
I sincerely hope that this article has helped you realize the true potential of writing — not just as an external system for thought, a learning tool, and a creativity booster — but as a way of life.
