A brief reintroduction
I tend to write concisely.* If I can get an idea across with an economy of words, why belabor my point? I edit as I write, rephrasing and cutting until what’s left is my point and little more.
A mentor once told me to think about the point I’m trying to get across, and determine whether it’s a talk, a blog post, or a tweet. What begins as a grand exposition shrinks to a blog post before reducing, like a stock, to nothing more than a sentence-length post shared on social media. Cut until there’s nothing left to cut.
This works for me. It doesn’t always work when I edit others. When writing is a rare activity, every word feels precious. But when you edit in real time, all the time — whether on the page or in conversation — no words are spared. “I’ve never been edited like this,” a self-described thought leader once complained to me when I returned my notes on his book’s introduction. His ideas had also never been clearly understood.
My love of writing is also a love for writers, and how I write differs from what I read. Charles Dickens, Emily St. John Mandel, Joe Posnanski, and Dan Sinker have little in common in writing style (and have likely never appeared together in the same sentence). Each has instructed me. Exposure to many voices — and many more ideas — tells me not just what ideas would be worth sharing, but how I might express them. It took time and practice to land on what works for me, but it starts with exposure to other writers.
I’ve been fortunate to work as a researcher in media and publishing since 2012, and I am even more fortunate to learn from writers and readers in my current role as staff researcher at Medium. I plan to write about my work at Medium on Medium going forward, while also cross-posting to my blog. I’ll do so as briefly as possible.
*I considered revising this sentence to read, “I write concisely,” but decided against such a declaration. “I tend” signals that concision is a goal, not a rule.
