Lessons from Writing Atomic Essays
Just in Time #365
An Atomic Essay is a one-page, 300-word written piece that explores insights into one topic.
I’ve been writing atomic essays for three years and published an essay on average every three days. My original inspiration was Irish poet David Whyte’s one-word-title essay on Friendship. It is a work of brilliance and nuance that depicts deep insight and thought on the topic.
The only way to learn how to write something as beautiful is to start writing.
Starting is the hardest thing.
When you first start doing something, you realise that you suck at it, and it’s way harder than you thought it was. That is why most people give up.
If you start something and choose to keep going, you will learn about yourself in ways you never thought possible.
Here are some lessons from #WriteEveryDay and publishing Just in Time Essays:
I am the worst judge of my writing. What I think is an ordinary piece of writing often gets the best feedback. I never know what will resonate with my readers. When I think I have written my most inspired piece, I get crickets.
Writing reduces stress. When I measure my heart rate variance while writing, it looks the same as when I’m sleeping – low and steady.
Publishing produces a dopamine high that feels like the equivalent of running a half marathon before breakfast.
Writing helps you think better. It forces you to complete your thoughts and enables you to get through the clutter. Fresh thinking and clarity of thought take practice and need to be nurtured; writing helps with that.
The practice of writing produces better writing, especially if you force yourself to use fewer words and be specific.
Writing makes you more conscious about life. This is a function of being on the lookout for subjects to write about and forces you to see the world through a creative lens.
Writing anchors your learnings. Writing forces you to convert thoughts into concepts you can articulate for others to understand and learn from.
Writing is a process of bucketing out the spam that sits on top of the insights. You have to get beneath the junk before you can find the gold. This is like defragging your hard drive.
Little things add up to big things. This is the rule of exponential returns from being consistent. One article turns into two, and before long, you have written a book.
Measuring your progress is motivation in itself. You are inspired to improve when you notice how much you have moved the needle.
Justin Spencer-Young