Quick glance:
What doomscrolling from 8 pm to 2 am steals from us
What my senior journalists taught me about half-cooked ideas
How Tabitha King, Harper Lee and Adele show the power of long work
Sharing publicly or building quietly with utmost attention?
What is this 30-day challenge?
Inspired by NaNoWriMo, where amateur writers attempt a novel every November, Iâm writing for 30 days on my Substack. The goal is to put out 30 days of horrible writing, but 30 days of showing up. If anybodyâs up for it, join me.
Picture this: You pull out your phone. You see a reel of your friend in Bangkok travelling with his wife. You see a story of your politically sensitive buddy from work, screaming about the lack of democratic freedom.
You swipe, and then you bump into a motivational quote.
Swipe: 10 best foods in your city.
Swipe: hack to clean your home.
Swipe: dating advice.
Swipe: how to focus.
Swipe. No, wait. What happened?
Did you just lose 3 hours?
It was 8 pm, and now it is 2 am. What the hell?
Sadly, I am a phone slave.
I spend a lot of time watching videos about writing when I should be writing.
The book Snow Leopard, by Nicolas Cole and his Category Pirates co-authors, says it clearly: if you create less and consume more, then you are a consumer and not a creator.
Fantastic books and where to find them
I devoured Harry Potter for hours as a kid. As a teen, I read Dan Brownâs books and immersed myself in the world of mystery, codes, science, and religion.
Sometimes I wish I could go back in time before social media came into my life, when my focus was at its peak. When I could read for hours without disturbance, and walk beside Bilbo Baggins across Middle-earth without any deterrence or with Lucy in Narnia or go for adventures with TinTin or fight the Romans with Astrix.
But that was then, and this is now.
Today, more than the worry of lack of focus, I have another baggage:
the fear of constant creation,
the fear of constant productivity,
the fear of constant efficiency.
Online creators yap the same philosophy: be self-independent, grab financial freedom, be healthy, learn to love yourself, your family, leave an impact, and blah blah blah
But sometimes I wonder: is it possible to slow down and actually live a little? To live the life we lived before social media crashed onto our daily routine like a torpedo?
Partners who anchor
I think of Tabitha King, the wife of author Stephen King aka the King of Horror. She nudged him to complete the draft of a story that he had thrown away.
He got back to work and the thrown-away trash became Carrie â Stephenâs debut novel that launched him into literary stardom.
Do we need a person to make us slow down, to pause, to reflect, to take in the everyday with grace?
But what if we donât really have someone?
Sit with it when the going gets tough
As a reporter working for newspapers across my city, I often got my story ideas rejected by my editor. I was told they were half-cooked.
âYou have to sit with itâ was common advice that I heard from my seniors: âFind the story angle.â âFind the hook.â âKnow who your reader is.â âUnderstand what you are looking at.â âGive masala, the magic element of what makes your story exciting.â
I would take time to think out loud about the process and then go about repitching. All of this was done by myself.
But now the process of creation, thinking, and ideation is under the internetâs lens. Iâm serving the two schools of thought that we are given to eat:
One is that we show up every day and keep sharing publicly our work in progress.
The other is that we do the work quietly, but with more focused attention, as our eyes is on the end game â the long-term price. We are not bothered about creating a marketing plan but we just want to love the creation as the art gets shaped.
When the work speaks for itself
In Perennial Seller, Ryan Holiday writes about Harper Lee. In 1957, when she submitted her manuscript, her editor, Tay Hohoff, was receptive, but said it required significant rework. Lee trusted her editor, and for the next two years she worked hard. Today, To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most widely read books in the US.
Ryan also shares the example of the singer Adele. When she told her producer, Rick Rubin, that she was ready to bring out her work, Rubin replied: âI donât believe you.â Adele went back to the drawing board and put her blood and sweat into her music. Eventually, her album came out and sold 3.38 million copies in its first week in the US.
So, what do we see here?
Perhaps it is wiser to hone the craft with a laser-sharp focus. Perhaps it is better to put in the effort more on the process rather than the narration of the process. Perhaps it is wiser to think like a legacy builder because when we trust in our grit and effort, then our work will speak for itself. The challenge is only to not get influenced by the fastness of the internet age or the doomsday warning that AI unleashes every day.
Rayaan Writerâs Day 4 Prompt:
You know the drill â Pick up a pen/paper or your laptop and explain in 200 words
Write what work you are willing to focus everyday
Write what you want to achieve through this work.
Write what you are willing to let go â movies or games âto focus on this goal
We just write good horrible first drafts and hit publish!
And thatâs all for today! Reach out to me on LinkedIn to say hi.
You can simply reply to this email or comment below. See you soon! đâ¤ď¸
