Episode Details

The ones who are most successful at writeathons (Inkhaven, NaNoWriMo) are those with an overhang of things to say, usually in the form of:

• draft posts
• daydreams

When Scott Alexander said:

"Whenever I see a new person who blogs every day, it's very rare that that never goes anywhere or they don't get good. That's like my best leading indicator for who's going to be a good blogger." (source).

, it may seem you can just write every day, but that'd be Goodharting. There's something hidden in the writing process you can't see: they have something to say.

They'll have an idea (somehow) and think it through by [writing it out/sitting quietly/etc]. This can then generate more ideas, some of which aren't even related to the original idea!

At this point, though, my imaginary interlocutor would like to say:

I'm trying to publish a blog post every day, so of course I'll eventually be bottlenecked on ideas! How do you generate them though?

Catching Ideas

Have an idea? Write down the idea. This is equivalent to giving your idea-generating process a cookie, reinforcing the habit of generating ideas.

Sometimes, when I'm writing one post, a different idea will [...]

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Outline:

(01:18) Catching Ideas

(02:32) Just \[Write\] and Nobody Will Get Hurt

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:
May 8th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/h5n3rscJ7he3yLseo/write-cause-you-have-something-to-say-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.