I get asked a lot about writing. There’s the formal advice you get from Elements of Style and that’s certainly useful. As you move beyond that it’s also worth getting more thematic, so I thought I would start a little series. This is on the act of writing itself. In the future I’ll do another on getting your work into magazines and websites, then finally book publishing. Those will appear on The Contender newsletter. The last piece will come out closer to the release of The Optimist.

So here are some things that work for me, and I think work for other people. In no particular order. 

-Don’t Obsess Over Style. People who start to write (or paint, or make films or music, for that matter), usually have strong influences. Salinger, Didion, Salter, Bourdain. That’s natural, but work through those to find something that sounds like you. How do you do that? Writing a lot. And not trying to make early work flawless. 

-Don’t Try to Sound Smart or Official. I call this the Williams Rule. At the risk of complimenting my podcast partner, Michael has always communicated clearly and well since his started his ACL and invented the internet. He doesn’t dress things up, he doesn’t try to prove he knows all. He sounds like himself and has a point of view. That’s a good equation and is harder than you think. 

-Who Cares What’s Popular? You think everybody’s into what’s on Instagram—Land Rovers, martinis, whatever. Well, there are many people who write about all that very successfully. What about something obscure that you’re an expert in? A rare family recipe, a dog show you attended with only twenty people, a local volleyball tournament. I’m happy to read about something I know nothing about. Look up Ian Frazier or Helen Macdonald, they get very specific and you follow them where they go.

-Get Personal. You probably aren’t going to get into an interesting place until you start to reveal something that matters to you. It doesn’t have to be profound or painful, it can be funny and frank. If I was going to learn about somebody I would be interested in what they wore to their prom, the first concert they went to, their apartment when left college, a strange tradition their family has. As a kid did you have a penpal, a hamster, a fort, a bike with a name, a beloved halloween costume, posters of some random actor on your wall? That’s the good stuff. Leave reviewing watches to somebody else. 

-Read Non-Fiction. This is obvious. But it’s important to get used to the tone of people who write well and write often, who communicate opinions and theories and a sense of humor in a dynamic way. These people can be dead New Yorker writers (A.J. Liebling), living New Yorker writers (Emily Nussbaum, Anthony Lane, Naomi Fry). They can be historians, essayists, art critics. But I think that’s a good way to get the energy to write more. If you’re not prolific when you’re starting why will you be prolific later on? 

-It’s Not Supposed to be Perfect. That’s what editors are for! Don’t lose your mind about getting the first paragraph right. My goodness, there’s so much more to do! Get something down and keep it moving. The early art reviews I wrote were very dense. Very dense. I took them very seriously and wanted them to be good. But not everything is an art review. Let some air in. You shouldn’t look at something you wrote and not be able to read it out loud. It should recognizably sound like you. 

-A Dressing Metaphor. When somebody dresses up they should still look relaxed. Most of the time, however, they look like they’re in a tuxedo against their will (and they usually are). When many people write it feels like they’re dressing formally and against their will. They use language they wouldn’t normally use, and formulate things in a way that isn’t natural to them. This is probably a hangover from school writing when people felt they had to prove they were smart or something. Ditch that thinking, please. Writing is not a rented tuxedo. It’s not jeans either. It should be polished and clear. But natural too. That’s the dream. 

Not to sound like a high school guidance counselor, but writing is something that everybody can do and do effectively. When I’ve commissioned stories I often ask people who aren’t writers to tell good stories. If they’re reluctant I tell them just to write it in an email to me. No word file. No staring at a blank page. No expectation of being extremely profound. No thesis statement. Just tell the story, one word after another. It’s the only way there is.