Riding the Writing Wave

Author: David Perell URL: https://www.perell.com/blog/writing One-line: Perell’s practical manifesto on writing — that writing generates ideas as much as it communicates them, plus a tactical workflow for brainstorming, outlining, editing, and cutting.

Key claims

• Writing generates ideas; it doesn’t just communicate them. It “forces you to think” and is “nature’s way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is.” Clear writers are clear thinkers.
• Focus on process, not outcome. Don’t write more than three hours a day; make writing a daily habit — “write something every day, no matter what.”
• Consumption is a trap. It “feels so good — too good,” giving a thin, two-dimensional view. Only by writing about an idea do you get a three-dimensional perspective. Expect 80% of an essay’s ideas to arrive after you start, and 50% of your starting ideas to be wrong (Content Consumption).
• Mega-Brainstorm first. Pile facts, ideas, and stories into one document without organizing; “collect, collect, and then select” until it becomes painful not to write — goodbye writer’s block (Roam Research).
• Keep it in outline form as long as possible and write with shorter sentences. “Produce, then edit. Don’t combine them.”
• Edit by becoming the reader, not the writer — step away for days, read aloud, “edit as if you have no sunk costs.” Rewrite a fresh 10–15 sentence outline from memory to distill the piece to its essence.
• Cut ruthlessly. “The shorter the article, the less bullshit.” Use “TK” as a placeholder for missing details; delete anything that gives you trouble. Maintains a list of banned words (just, that, really, very, thing…) and phrasings (I think, I believe, it seems).

Notable quotes

“Writing is its own reward.” — Henry Miller

“Writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates new ones.”

“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize until you have tried to make it precise.”

“The problem with consumption is that it feels so good — too good. It gives you a thin, superficial perspective on the world.”

“Effort isn’t something readers want. Substance is. The shorter the article, the less bullshit.”

How it connects

• Writing — the most concentrated statement of Perell’s writing method in Kyle’s corpus.
• Content Consumption — the consumption-as-procrastination warning recurs across Perell’s notes.
• Roam Research — the tool behind the mega-brainstorm capture habit.
• Nat Eliason — source of the “TK” tactic and much of the editing toolkit.
• How to Maximize Serendipity / Hyper Publishing — writing as the engine of serendipity and trust.

Verbatim source notes — restored from Roam, 2026-09-21

• If you’re not careful, consuming all day can become another form of procrastination. This is a dangerous trap. When you consume all the time without producing anything, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re more productive than you really are
• Morgan Housel: Make Your Point and Get Out of the Way
• Try not to use transitions. They work every once in a while, but most people use too many of them. If you do use a transition, don’t use the same one too many times
• Nat Eliason: 21 Tactics to Help You Become a Better Writer (Highly recommend)
• Paul Graham: Writing, Briefly
• Aim to produce something of worth, beauty and elegance. Steal stylistically from other writers, as all great readers do
• For knowledge to become wisdom, it must be carefully, tenderly analyzed from many angles, through many means. Many people don’t write because they’d rather consume more information. Consumption is fun, but it can get out of hand
• Once you get in the groove, don’t try to sound smart or impressive. Pursue truth and let that speak for itself.
• Banned Words: Before publishing, search for the following words and remove them when possible.
• Eugene Wei: The Rhythm of Writing
• The problem with consumption is that it feels so good – too good. It gives you a thin, superficial perspective on the world. Even if you get an accurate picture, it’ll only be two-dimensions. But if you don’t write about an idea, you’ll never have a three-dimensional perspective on it. This is why you should expect 80% of the ideas in the essay to happen after you start writing it and 50% of the ideas you start with to be wrong Content Consumption
• Conferences and networking events are good for the short term, but writing is the best long-term strategy
• Writing forces you to think. It’s nature’s way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is. The ultimate test of how well you understand something is how clearly you can explain it in writing — clear writers are clear thinkers. As a wise” man once said: “everything is vague to a degree you do not realize until you have tried to make it precise.”
• Khe He: Create Your Own Luck with a Writing Practice
• The easiest way to deal with almost anything giving you trouble is to delete it. If a sentence is bugging you, delete it. Awkward paragraph, delete it. Confusing section, delete it. You’ll find you never needed it in the first place.
• Actual / Actually
• Jordan B. Peterson’s 10 Step Guide to Clearer Thinking Through Essay Writing
• Tyler Cowen: My Personal Moonshot
• Collect, collect, and then select. Keep adding ideas to your mega-brainstorm until it becomes painful not to write the essay. Goodbye writer’s block!
• Make the outline as simple as possible. That way, you can focus more on ideas and less on structure.
• The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer. If you’re struggling to do this, step away from the piece for a few days. Edit as if you have no sunk costs. Reject bad ideas, so good ones are all you have left
• Most people read on their smartphones. They’re busy and on-the-go. Don’t write 8-10 sentence paragraphs unless you’re making an important point
• Taylor Pearson: Lessons Learned From Writing a Book
• When you become a regular writer, you change how you live. Writing forces you to pay attention and helps you understand what you believe
• Unfortunate / fortunate
• Mega-Brainstorm: Before you begin, piece together ideas, facts and stories into a single document. Don’t bother organizing it. Put information in there whenever you read, hear, or experience something that’s relevant to the general idea of the essay. Doing this is trivial because your smartphone is always with you. Roam Research
• Focus on the process, not the outcome. It’s impossible to play the long-game when you’re checking the score every five minutes. If you want to sustain your writing practice over a long time, don’t write for more than three hours per day
• Most great writing starts out as bad writing. Edit by reading what you’ve written out loud
• Why TK? Think of it as “To Come.” It  reminds me to add more context later. That letter combination doesn’t appear in any English word, so when you CMD+F for it after you’re done writing, you’ll only find the instances where you used it as a place marker
• Adverbs are lazy. Writers usually use them to compensate for weak and non-descriptive words in other parts of their sentence. You can spot an adverb because it ends in “ly.” Think of words like sadly, happily, and maddeningly. Instead of using an ad verb, use a stronger verb. So instead of writing “I happily walked to work,” write “I danced to work
• Write a new, 10-15 sentence outline. Don’t look back at your essay while you are doing this. The works because you’ll force yourself to reconstruct your argument from memory. This will distill the piece to its essence
• Don’t repeat the same words too much, except for when you want to prove a point
• The function of editing is to reduce and rearrange. Produce, then edit. Don’t combine them. Never let production and editing interfere with each other.
• Seek flow and precision. Don’t try to impress people with vocabulary; it will backfire. Eliminate words that aren’t used in normal conversation
• Venkatesh Rao: Tips for Advanced Writers
• Keep the post in outline form for as long as possible. Outlines force simplicity. They make it easier to see the ideas and move them around. The vast majority of people should write with shorter sentences; outlines make this easy
• Banned Phrasings
• Make writing a daily habit. A day where you don’t write anything is the enemy of productivity. Days when you don’t write anything are the enemy of productivity. The most important thing: write something every day — no matter what.
• Of all the tactics inspired by Nat Eliason, this is my favorite. As you’re writing, put “TK” anywhere you aren’t sure of a detail, or where you need to add more context later
• When you sit down to write, your mind will rebel. Expect this to happen. That way, it won’t bother you when it does.
• By summarizing your ideas, your memory becomes a filter. It helps you remove what is useless and preserve what is vital.
• The most important part of learning and remembering is the re-creation of what you have written in your own words
• While working on the outline, keep moving, keep writing, and don’t get bogged down by the details
• Ernest Hemingway: The Art of Fiction
• Read to inspire you to write more, and write to inspire you to read more. Through this delicate balance of production and consumption, I encourage you to cultivate your own writing habit