Writing. 2 essays and 13 notes.

Heard DHH mention this on Lex Fridman’s podcast:

YouTube · youtube.com ↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Agentic Engineering, Vibe Coding & Linux | Lex Fridman Podcast #501Lex Fridman on YouTube

Nabeel Qureshi recently tweeted that the winning entry of the 2026 Harper’s Bazaar short story competition was written by AI. He posted a screenshot from Pangram, one of those AI-writing detection platforms. She sat on the bench opposite, the wood damp through her wool trousers – the Jigsaw ones from three years ago…

Everybody should have a blog and here’s why: Writing is easily one of the best forcing functions for learning about new things, thinking through them, and sharing your perspective with other people. And there’s a reason it’s a forcing function: the moment you start typing, your half-formed opinions tend to crumble. All…

Good advice: He then returns to the psychological payoff of this trying practice: > Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When…

A writing maxim I want to tattoo on my hand: Stop trying be smart. Just be honest about how you feel.

Sonora Jha on writing:

I have come to see that writing has become a way for me to be in the deepest conversation with myself while also sensing the hovering presence of another. I don’t know who that other is – perhaps a gentle future reader. This personal conversation feels forbidden, in a way, given my work in journalism. But I find treasures in my thoughts and feelings, and I rush to put them on the page. Then a story takes shape and tells me something about life, about ideas, about the world. Yes, it’s cathartic and yes, it’s also an outward conversation.

This reflection was sparked by this tweet from Peter Steinberger, whom you should absolutely follow on Twitter and read on his blog. I came across his account recently and started reading his writing. For an amateur web coder, his blog is surprisingly rich with practical, thoughtful tips. I’ve also been poking around…

Wonderful reflection on the rewards of writing by Victor Kumar. The post is filled with other rabbit holes including links to Victor’s writing and also other philosophers writing on Substack. My kinda post 😺

What I didn’t realize was that writing a Substack would also reignite my intellect. Over the first five months, I posted an essay nearly every week. I’ve always read a lot, but before, the words passed through me—my mind a sieve. Now, I keep dozens of running files in my notes app about topics I hope to write about. Before, spare moments were taken up by mindless scrolling. Now, they’re spent writing and editing. Substack brought my mind back to life. I gained autonomy over my work instead of being yoked to journal referees or newspaper editors. My essays here have less professional currency than journal articles, less reach than op-eds, but they’re more meaningful to me. (I’d give it all up for a byline in The New Yorker.)

Wonderful reflection on the many joys and rewards kd writing by Drew Breunig. Hard agree with everything, especially this one:

Writing gives you a license to explore and organize your thoughts. This is the fun bit. Chasing down an idea that interests you, forming questions and then investigating them; it’s a joy. The second most common question I get about my writing is, “How do you motivate yourself to write?” This is the answer. There are so many drafts that live, dormant in my draft folder. So many times I start a piece and lose interest. And then: something will click and I’ll draft, investigate, and finish a piece in an hour (here’s two examples). These aren’t always the most substantive pieces, but they keep the practice going and the momentum up.

Came across the article on Twitter.

Amen. I couldn’t agree more with Simon Willison: You should start a blog. Having your own little corner of the internet is good for the soul! But what should you write about? It’s easy to get hung up on this. I’ve definitely felt the self-imposed pressure to only write something if it’s new, and unique, and feels like…

Nothing is original. We’re are always copying and stealing from others.

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron:

We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don’t have our own style. Don’t worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing. Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That’s how they learn to write. (Location 1,281)

From Rob Henderson.

From Letters to a Young poet by Rainer Maria Rilke: There is only one way: Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most…

I’m a huge fan of Venkatesh Rao’s writing and I reread this essay on his experience with AI-assisted writing. Now that pretty much everybody has access some basic large language models (LLMs) through the free plans of ChatGPT or the better Chinese models like DeepSeek and Qwen, is there a need to go through the manual…