Good writing isn’t about studying how great essays or poems look and then figuring out how to reverse engineer that (though that’s part of it). Rather, it’s about learning how to pay close attention to your thoughts and feelings and the concrete materiality of the world, and mastering the craft so you can translate what you see onto the page.
I really think this is true. Sometimes I forget about it and get distracted with what I think the writing should look like or feel like, but it is so often the case that the most enjoyable writing is that which doesn't do much more than accurately describe the world.
(Sorry, couldn't find a non-paywalled link.)
Reminds me of the time when I wandered over to some subreddit about writing and saw a post about someone worrying about their word count - which was bad enough, but even worse was the fact that none of the replies pointed out the fact that word count does not matter; its not quantity, it's quality that matters.
In fact, I'd say that less is more, if one can relay the same idea in a more concise manner. But hey, we live in the fiat age, where apparently it is about quantity over quality.
There was a time when my sentences became so emaciated in their pursuit of concision that they were ugly, bony things and indistinguishable - as if a famine had been upon my mind. Not good.
I see. Well, you can definitely overdo it. Especially if/when the mental landscape is barren and you're trying to write something for the sake of getting it done or meeting a deadline or whatever.
Like all of life, writing is a balancing act ☯️
was just looking at a basics of drawing work book and it gave nearly identical advice for drawing:
the artist should look at the scene or object more than the paper
That’s classic and timeless advice — and for good reason. Whether you’re drawing or learning to see, it’s all about observation. The hand just follows what the eyes truly understand, not what they assume. Looking at the subject more than the paper trains accuracy and improves proportion naturally.
What you write needs to be understandable from the person how read the article, use pure technical terms is not in your favor to let the other person interact, it could be someone how doesn't know anything about Defi swap or first time he heard about the term, so what you write needs to be in simple words without aborting technical part much.