I rebuilt my writing process from scratch this year. Eight habits stuck. Here they are, in order of how much time they saved me.
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1. Outline on paper, draft on screen. Switching tools forces a second pass before a single sentence exists.
2. Write the ending first. Once you know where the piece lands, every paragraph has somewhere to go.
3. One idea per paragraph. If a paragraph needs an “and also”, it is two paragraphs.
4. Set a word budget before you start. Eight hundred words is a different piece from two thousand, not a shorter one.
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Amara Osei · @amara
This is the one I keep sending to friends who are starting a newsletter.
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Jonas Wirth · @jwirth
Saved. Reading it again on Thursday when the issue lands.
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Lena Park · @lenapark
Short, specific, and I can use it tomorrow. More like this please.
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Noa Kestrel
@noa ·
1/9
I rebuilt my writing process from scratch this year. Eight habits stuck. Here they are, in order of how much time they saved me.
Noa Kestrel
@noa ·
Draft one is for you. Draft two is for the reader. Draft three is for the one person who will forward it.
Noa Kestrel
@noa ·
New essay: why I stopped posting every day, and the numbers that convinced me. Twelve minutes, no charts you have to squint at.
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