Padmini Writes — Take 3
My 2020 writing journey.
Early in life, I discovered writing wasn’t for me. I dismissed it as something I could never master, and told myself to just stick to calculus. I had a fixed-mindset then, so I made a habit of categorizing everything into two buckets: things I’m good at, and things I’m not and never will be good at. Writing fell into the second category.
In the summer of 2018, however, I decided to give writing another try. I became an avid reader and longed for the ability to describe a feeling, a place, a person, like my favorite authors could. I was especially mesmerized by Haruki Murakami’s work. His stories were fantastical and his prose was so simple, so readable. His novels showed me that I didn’t need to memorize the English dictionary to take readers on an adventure.
Super-Frog Saves Tokyo — my favorite Murakami short story.
My 2018 attempt at writing well would be different. I had grown out of my fixed-mindset, and because I was in the middle of a 3-month sabbatical, I had time to practice. I promptly signed up for a creative writing class to pursue my summer dream.
By the end of the 8-hour writing workshop, I felt discouraged. Compared to that of my fellow students, my writing read like a mathematical proof: unimaginative and list-like. I knew I could write better if I practiced, but I wasn’t ready to face the angst of overcoming a new challenge. I talked myself out of pursuing writing further.
It’s May 2020 now, and it’s my 3rd attempt at writing well.
Padmini writes, take 3.
Like in 2018, I have time. My partner and I quit our jobs to travel, and because of COVID-19, we’ve been sheltering in place.
I didn’t deliberately decide to improve my writing this time around. It found me. I had lots of spare time while sheltering in place in Queenstown, so I played Final Fantasy 7 and wrote about it. Without a goal in mind, I was able to relish the process of developing my FF7 notes into a blog post. I read and re-read my draft a dozen times a day. I read my draft so many times that I had it memorized, and would come up with edits while in the shower or while falling asleep. It took me 2 days of writing and 8 days of editing before I hit publish.
Since then, I’ve been writing daily. The cycle of editing and re-writing appeals to the programmer in me; precision, clarity, and brevity are common between good code and good writing. Just like good code is simple and uses clear and specific variable names, good writing is simple and uses descriptive verbs and adjectives. Deleting vapid sentences in writing is as gratifying as deleting duplicate logic in code.
I’m savoring the writing process, so my goal from 2018 has become more of a milestone. I no longer want to write to achieve a certain level of mastery, I just want to write as long as it’s interesting to me. And maybe along the way, I’ll write well enough to describe a scene that inspires me or well enough to transport my readers to a galaxy far far away. Either way, I’m having fun.
If you’re also interested in improving your writing, here’s how I’ve approached it:
Read books on writing. I read The Elements of Style and On Writing Well, and recommend reading both.
Write for at least 60 minutes every day. My daily practice is a mix of journaling and writing or editing pieces that I want to publish. I’m starting to publish posts about engineering management because that’s the area I’m most comfortable with, but I hope to write more personal posts like this one in the future.
Maintain a list of blog post ideas. I use google keep for this. The tagging feature comes in handy.
Follow writers you admire on Twitter or Medium.
Publish at least once a month. I’ve found that most new writers commit to publishing once a week, but I’m taking it slow.
Solicit feedback.
Expand your vocabulary. I’m currently using Vocabulary Builder. It’s an app for standardized test preparation. Though I’m not planning to take the SAT again, I find the flashcard format helpful.
Thank you for reading.
To those who want to follow my journey, I plan to write and publish more often for practice and feedback. It would be such a gift to hear from you and receive any feedback you may have. This can include feedback on my prose, my grammar, the topics I’m writing about, and the topics you want to hear more about.
Read my first update on my writing progress here.