Writing Without Expectations: my new writing practice

I wasn't a writer. I never aspired to be one.

But then in college, when I was feeling lost, I discovered blogs. These were some really smart people who had written thousands of words freely sharing their hard-earned lessons with no monetary expectations. It saved that lost college kid.

I wrote my first article to contribute to that incredible trend. That's when I discovered the joy of writing.

But unfortunately, a few of my early pieces got viral. They crossed 100k views and I got hooked to the feeling. So, I started chasing numbers, optimising my writing for "bigger reach" and when i didn't get it, I got dismayed. That's when I lost the joy of writing.

I think something similar has happened to the Internet at large in recent years. It has lost that remarkable culture of blogging. People write only to "build an audience" so they can make "passive income" in the future.

But there's so much joy in writing just to share your hard earned lessons. Not to mention how much it can serve the people behind you. I rebuilt this blog this week because I want to get back to that trend.

Here, I will just openly and freely share my hard-earned lessons, my observations, my hot takes, my secret recipes and behind-the-scenes stories here. With zero expectations of it becoming viral or me growing an email list.

"Good work is its own reward."

– Bhagwad Gita

The case for NOT writing engaging articles

After spending years closely listening to the copywriting experts, I have decided that I do not want to create engaging content on this site. This is one of my top contrarian thoughts.

I'm talking the technique on how to come up with just the right set of words so your listener cannot help but go to the next sentence.

I don't find this interesting anymore because:

1. It is really easy to create engaging content with AI

I've got a Spiral right now that can create content in the style of Shaan Puri. That's my favorite author of all time. And it does that with astounding accuracy every single time. Barely takes a second to run.

Not a lot of people don't use a Spiral-like tool today but give it a few months and the internet will get filled with seemingly endless stream of engaging content. In the same way it has become filled with this stream of SEO-fied content.

So writing engaging articles is not going to be what differentiates humans from AI.

Every great blog needs to find a higher purpose.

2. I want to optimize for truth, originality and passion.

For me, the primary goal of writing on this blog is to share - that means I should be optimising for:

1. Frequency: how often do I write?
2. Truth: can i muster up the courage to be vulnerable?
3. Originality: am i adding something new to the vast trove of knowledge that future AIs will be trained upon?

Notice that all of these goals are inward facing. They don't depend upon the outside world's interactions with my writing. That is good.

"Good work is its own reward."

– Bhagwad Gita

So I need to be practicing how to get tuned in with my own thoughts. I need to practice how to have the courage to be vulnerable to share my failures and my secret recipes on the internet.

My process: Defeating Blank Page Paralysis monster with AI

This is my new process of writing which helps me get more tuned in with my inner thoughts. This article that you're reading is the 3rd article I'm publishing today. Impressive, right?

How did I do that?

I killed the Blank Page Paralysis monster.

Anybody who has tried writing anything knows that this monster is the blocker of all writing. You open a blank page or a blank input box. And wham! It hits you. Paralyzes you. All you see is an empty white space with cursor blinking in white emptiness.

Not a great place to start.

I killed this monster by the latest advancements in AI. Particularly, the voice-to-text models that have given me tools like Voice Notes and Whispr Flow.

Here's my process for using them to defeat the Blank Page Paralysis monster:

1.  Every night, before going to bed, I spend some time talking to myself into the Voice Notes app on my phone. It's like free journaling except I don't need to write. I'm free to talk about anything work related that's on my mind at the end of that day. It's usually some sort of a learning, an observation, a failure, a win or a hot take.

2. At this point, I'm not thinking about "post ideas". I'm just thinking. Often times, I surprise myself by saying something really profound. Happens more often than you might expect. You never know how deep your idea is until you start pulling on it.

3. I speak until I have nothing else left to say.

4. Then, if I have really impressed myself with the idea, I'll feel an urge to post it on X. Which I do. Take some time to edit the transcription to make it read worthy and post.

5. Finally, I sit down every Sunday with the goal of writing on this blog. I look at my voicenotes from the week to look for common themes. Once I've found 2-3 notes that are talking about the same idea, I start a new post and dump their transcript.

And viola! Blank Page Paralysis monster defeated!

Now comes editing. Chiselling this raw block transcript into something readworthy. This is the most difficult and the most interesting part of writing. I'll tell you about my editing process another day.