Joe's Notes

David Perell's Writing Syllabus

Sep 20, 20245 min read

Howdy,

If you’re ready to start writing, but don’t know where to begin, this email is for you.

It’s a list of the best things I’ve written about online writing. I’ve separated the page into multiple sections and will add to it as I find future writing articles.

Through my online writing course called Write of Passage, I’ve taught hundreds of people to write, and most of the challenges come down to the same core issues. The biggest problem with writing education is that we focus too much on grammar.

Teachers focus on syntax and punctuation because it’s easy to grade. But your writing will never be good if you can’t identify and refine interesting ideas. Beyond that, my students are plagued by psychological hurdles. Writer’s block, imposter syndrome, and fear of judgment limit aspiring writers more than grammatical errors ever will. Anyways, here are my go-to resources on writing well. It’s split into five sections:

  • The basics
  • Finding great ideas
  • Building the writing habit
  • The craft of writing
  • Recommended articles by other people

Enjoy!

THE BASICS

  • The Ultimate Guide to Online Writing__: In this post, I outline my entire philosophy of writing online. __Writing online is the fastest way to accelerate your career. It’s the best way to learn faster, build your resume, and find peers and collaborators who can create job and business opportunities for you.
  • Why You Should Write__: __Writing online is a guaranteed way to shrink the world. A well-written article can change your life because the internet rewards people who think well. Everything you write is an advertisement for the kinds of people and opportunities you want to attract, and if you have a voice, you can build a platform. As Derek Sivers once wrote: “The coolest people I meet are the ones who find me through something I’ve written.”
  • How to Maximize Serendipity: Writing online is the fastest way to increase serendipity. If you can maximize your surface area for luck, you’ll accelerate your progress and create opportunities for yourself.

FINDING GREAT IDEAS

  • How I Choose What to Read: Information is like food. Any chef will tell you it’s impossible to cook a world-class meal without world-class ingredients. Writing is the same. The quality of your output depends on the quality of your input.
  • How to Learn on the Internet__: __Tell me what you pay attention to, and I’ll tell you who you are. In this post, I outline my strategy for learning for the internet.
  • Where the Wild Things Are: It’s a law of the universe: Creativity always starts at the edge. If you want to find interesting ideas, you have to escape the mainstream spotlight.
  • How to Maximize Creativity__: __Creativity can’t be created directly, but it can be cultivated. Turns out, there are a simple set of tricks you can use to maximize your creativity.

BUILDING THE WRITING HABIT

  • The Magic Moment: This post answers the question: “When should you start writing?” In it, I argue that you should start writing right when you have an epiphany because the moment right after an epiphany is the only moment in the creative process where the rush of enthusiasm trumps the fear of judgment.
  • How to Cure Writer’s Block:__ By the time you finish this article, you’ll be done with writer’s block forever. In it, I focus on three strategies for ending writer’s block: (1) gather supplies, (2) talk it out, and (3) start with abundance.

THE CRAFT OF WRITING

  • My Writing System: In this post, I outline the system I use to generate articles, organize them, and prepare them for publishing. I share my basic rules for writing and editing, such as switching context and adding a list of banned words.
  • Robert Caro’s Writing Secrets__: __Robert Caro’s is the world’s greatest biographer. Never, never, never in a million years did I think I would read a 1,200 page — 700,000-word — window into the politics of New York. But first-rate writing is seductive, no matter the topic. Facts alone aren’t enough. They’re too black-and-white. Readers yearn for images and anecdotes that make the information pop. For facts to stick in the reader’s mind, they must be enriched by colorful stories. Aided by subtle visuals and roller coaster narratives, Caro brings his biographies to life. That’s Robert Caro’s secret: he unlocks the electricity of sight.

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