Essays on writing

on the craft of writing and rewriting.

February 1, 2022

Always make three, or more. Never fewer.

How to find the best take on an idea.

The first thing you make is always terrible. Inevitably, irredeemably, wad-it-up-and-throw-it-in-the-trash bad. You’ll pick the wrong color, write the wrong opening line, add the wrong ingredient, start out on the wrong …

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January 29, 2022

Strikethrough and the power of defaults

who wouldn’t want to be king?

☐ Mark Revisions That was all it said, the box that foretold the death of proofreading marks. Nearly a decade into the word processor wars, Microsoft—already in 1989 “the nation’s largest personal software company” accor…

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January 28, 2022

How Strikethrough took over the world.

We invented a whole library of proofreading marks, then the strikethrough took over them all.

The first Office tools came on tablets in Mesopotamia. For there, in the cradle of civilization, they “patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet,” as a Sumerian poem related . Mesopotamians did everything on cl…

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January 4, 2022

Write what you wish others had written.

Answer your questions, then document the answer for others.

It all started with an obstinate printer, and an early adopter desperate to leave Vista behind for the promised land of Windows 7. The printer, naturally enough, didn’t want to play along. Google held no answers. HP didn…

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November 24, 2021

Copying is the best way to start.

Get your fingers and mind moving, and the words will start flowing.

There are two easiest ways to start running: Set out from the top of a hill, or take a dog for a run. The former sets you up for success; on a hill, one foot in front of another quickly builds enough momentum, you can’t …

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November 15, 2021

The best way to write? Rewrite.

The trick to writing is writing the same idea over and again.

Intros are the hardest thing to write. It's rare for me to overthink a random paragraph halfway through an article, beyond keeping an eye on rhythm and repetition. Conclusions are easy enough to write if you simply stop …

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November 9, 2021

Write in Markdown. Use HTML for everything else.

Sometimes simple isn't easier.

Four characters versus 18. That's the difference between adding double asterisks around text to make it bold with Markdown with two asterisks versus adding HTML's <strong>strong tags</strong> . Italics require fewer char…

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November 8, 2021

How to find out what people Google, and answer their questions.

Ask Google what they asked.

It all started when I googled markdown . I typed it in, and Google started trying to guess what I was looking for. Markdown cheat sheet , perhaps, or Markdown table ? Those were the things most people searched for when t…

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November 2, 2021

Ephemeral, or Enduring

Here today, gone tomorrow. Hidden today, valuable a hundred tomorrows from now.

52 years after van Gogh put brush to canvas, New York’s MoMA gave the painter its highest acclaim as it acquired his magnum opus The Starry Night . “Through his art and the tragic story of his life he has captured the he…

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Essays on writingwriting

Always make three, or more. Never fewer.

Strikethrough and the power of defaults

How Strikethrough took over the world.

Write what you wish others had written.

Copying is the best way to start.

The best way to write? Rewrite.

Write in Markdown. Use HTML for everything else.

How to find out what people Google, and answer their questions.

Ephemeral, or Enduring

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Write. Rewrite. Revise.

Essays on writing

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