Why We Write (And The Difference Between Thinking Vs Writing)

Writing seems so laborious at times.

We feel like giving up, but there’s a reason why we write. Actually, many reasons.

What are you supposed to do when a swarm of bees land on your car?

A bee swarm forms when a colony splits, and the queen leaves with thousands of worker bees to find a new home. The swarm temporarily stops, like on your car, to rest while scout bees search for a permanent nesting site.

Your car just happens to be a convenient stopping point. Meanwhile, the scout bees continue their search. Once they’ve found a suitable location, the entire swarm disappears.

That's pretty much what happens to our article writing ideas as well. If you're the kind of person who is constantly curious, you're likely to have a lot of thoughts. But thoughts move along quickly, only to be replaced by more thoughts. And then those, too, are gone.

Writing, it seems, is more valuable than we thought. In this article, we'll look at:

1- Thinking vs writing
2- Why writing creates evolution, then revolution.
3- The quest for elegance.
4- The discovery of YOU.

1) Thinking vs writing

In 2024, after 15 years, I finally published a book called “Suddenly Talented”.

Why 15 years, you may ask? The short answer is: I was thinking. Not just thinking, but also discussing. I had hundreds of discussions on talent and why I don't believe in inborn talent. Occasionally, I'd even write a few articles on it, but the book proved elusive.

It wasn't because I wasn't able to write.

While I was threatening to write the book, I wrote several others, including a few courses. The obstacle in my way wasn't the lack of content. If anything, there was too much of it buzzing around in my head.

The reason why we write is because writing is permanent.

When you have a chat with someone, it's loose and often wonderful. You don't have to worry about the structure, and can even sidestep the logic. When you write, it feels like every word counts.

You and I go back and forth; writing, editing, deleting, editing, knowing that there's a sense of finality to what we're doing.

Writing forces you to be detailed, yet succinct.

It requires you to explain yourself in detail. There's none of the random chatter or obtuseness we experience with speaking.

We write because we want to think better.

It's the reason why writing is so uncomfortable. It's not because you can't write, but because it feels impossible to corral all those swarms of thoughts, and then put them down in a way that makes sense. We're not even talking about elegant writing—just writing.

When I wrote “Suddenly Talented”, my days were so much longer.

Ask me to write a 1000-word article, and I'll usually get one out in about an hour. Writing 3000 words might take 3-4 hours, as there are more elements to juggle. However, writing a similar amount of words for the book took me ages. It seemed to drain my energy and make me flee to the cafe, instead.

Is there a happy ending to this story?

Yes, there is. As you write, you get a better sense of what you're really saying. If you were to write a chapter or a book, and as you reach the end, it's clear that the book needs a bit of a reshuffle. Even when writing articles, you'll find that you seem to have a sounder idea of what you want to convey.

At a certain point in your article, you're likely to be inundated with a pile of ideas. All these ideas have to be pushed into new articles, new chapters, or even a new book.

Nonetheless, there's a sigh of happiness that you've managed to put things down on paper. You don't have to keep thinking endlessly because it's finally done. It might not feel finished, and yet it is.

Writing is a ruthless tyrant.

Writing exposes your weaknesses in structure, shows the frailty of your argument, and forces you to express yourself better. If those were the only benefits of writing, they would still be a biggie, but they're only some reasons why we write.

The second reason is even cooler. It's about evolution—and a touch of revolution.

2) Why writing creates evolution, then revolution.

I don't know if you know, but The Brain Audit has versions.

There was Version 1, Version 2 and Version 3.2, but there's no Version 4. Why? When I finished the third version, I'd covered what I wanted.

The first version was more of a handout with fewer than 20 pages. The second was a lot better, but still needed work. The third took months and was finally done. By then, I'd been writing for almost a decade, so it was a finished product.

A few years later, my niece picked up the book and started reading it aloud.

I expected to be proud of my writing, but was cringing a bit. My niece covered a single paragraph, and I subtly diverted her attention to another activity. Even so, I was shaken by the fact that my “well-written” book needed a fair bit of tidying up.

I don't know why I was surprised because evolution is almost to be expected.

If you write a lot, you're expected to get better, right? Well, you will, but evolution can be slow. For writing to get to a stage of revolution, you need almost constant feedback.

At first, the input is soul-destroying. Every part of your writing seems to come under fire, and it feels like you can't do anything correctly. When you get the feedback, you are almost surprised.

You didn't want criticism, you wanted praise.

The first time I went to a watercolour class, I felt an intense need to be appreciated by the teacher. However, I realised that a single class wouldn't have improved my work much. Surely, by the fourth or fifth session, I'd get the praise I deserved.

Instead, he told me what I needed to fix.

I was upset because not only was I doing my best, but it was an improvement. After about 10 weeks, the course ended, and we had a small auction of our work. Friends and well-wishers were invited to the auction. My watercolour was priced at $20, and no one raised their hand to buy.

Then something improbable happened. The auctioneer decided to reduce the price. $10, $5 and still no takers. My wife, Renuka, stood there, not sure what to do. If she bought it, it was surely going to be an exercise in pity. Eventually, the auctioneer gave up.

I had my feedback in real terms: my work was worth nothing.

At this point, you and I are supposed to give up. We're supposed to believe that we're not talented and will never be any good at that skill. I took it as feedback and decided to get better.

I asked the teacher how to improve, and he said: Paint something daily. He suggested I keep a visual diary. In a way, he was suggesting evolution, step by step, day by day.

Writing is a day-by-day exercise too.

Like any other skill, it needs critical appraisal. A good way to get this feedback is to ask someone to read your headline, your first paragraph, the connections between the story and the article, or even to see if your objections are good enough.

Instead of asking someone to read your “entire piece,” a good strategy would be to ask for a tiny bit of criticism.

Tiny bits help, because you can manage the pushback.

If someone suggests the entire piece has gone haywire, it might feel soul-destroying. However, if you ask for a specific piece of feedback, you can tweak just that part. This helps even when you don't have someone to give you feedback.

If you need to improve your article headlines, you can start looking for headlines that seem to get your attention. If you look long enough, you will begin to recognise a pattern. Yes, it's a longer process, but it's possible to give yourself feedback.

There's a point when evolution speeds up.

That's a point of revolution. In some cases, we can predict when this will happen. In languages like French, for example, once you pass the 100,000 reps mark, you have enough vocabulary and grammar to get a decent conversation going.

With writing, just having a good sub-topic and headline will give you a push into revolution-land. Once you get your story connecting seamlessly with the article, you're doing better than the majority of the writers on the planet.

Add three core sections to the article and you've hit a sweet spot. Sure, you can add more, but you're well on the road to revolution.

However, there's also the plateau.

No matter how good you get, you will plateau. Everyone does, unless they ask for feedback. Then, someone points out a tiny little bit you've missed. That's when your writing perks up again.

I wrote The Brain Audit in 2009 and Suddenly Talented in 2024. Which of the two would have better writing? It looks like an easy answer, but it's not.

If I hadn't asked for feedback, my writing would have still improved, but in tiny increments. To get exponentially better, I had to get input from many sources.

You will want your writing to be evolutionary, but also revolutionary. Well, you know what to do: get feedback. Tiny portions of feedback. It will help you on your way.

Then it's a quest for elegance.

3) The quest for elegance.

My neighbour gets a weekly supply of veggies delivered to her door.

Within that mix of greens, there's always a cabbage and sometimes two. Her family is so sick of cabbage that she's more than happy to get rid of it. The next thing you know, the cabbage is on my doorstep. The problem with cabbage is that you can only eat so much.

Unless you turn it into cutlets.

Add chopped onions, carrots, chillies, assorted Indian spices and some salt, and you get magic. I know it's magic because when I gave my neighbour the cabbage cutlets, she asked for the recipe. As it turned out, the kids wolfed down a dozen cutlets in minutes.

Her husband, who wanted to burn the cabbage, thought the cutlets were great. The family then set about making cutlets for their own consumption.

Articles can be like cabbage.

The words and ideas we combine may make us want to abandon the whole writing process. However, there's always a way to make bad ol' cabbage wonderful. Essentially, you're taking the ordinary and adding a touch of elegance.

The core goal of writing is to corral our thoughts.

It's to ensure we discard the millions of ideas that don't matter. To get rid of the unnecessary details and mind-numbing loooooooooooooonngggggggggg sentences. We want to get a point across, and the sentence needs to lead to the next, and the next.

But then, the writing takes a turn.

We don't just want to peddle information. We know AI can do it way better than we can. We start to realise we are not just writing. Instead, we're selling an idea.

We want people to change the way they think or do things. Now that moment calls for more than just plain ol' cabbagey-AI. That's because “sales is a transfer of enthusiasm”.

Bugger.

We have to be enthusiastic?

Yup, that's the progression of writing. It's a sales pitch, no less, but done with so much finesse that the reader cracks a smile. They see the misdirection. They know they walked into something really cool. They want the recipe, too

This takes us to the fourth and final reason why we write. It's the discovery of YOU.

4) Writing is a discovery of you.

A city is always surprising to its own citizens.

You realise how little you know your city when someone visits. That visitor makes trips to different areas of the city, eats at various restaurants you've never heard of, and describes your city to you in a way that causes you to wonder if you're kinda stuck.

We usually live in a suburb, visit the same supermarket, and work within a familiar radius. We rarely venture outside our daily routine. Which is why it's so surprising when an outsider asks you questions you can't easily answer.

When someone asks you questions, you feel you should have the answer to them.

It's not that you're completely clueless, but there isn't a sense of clarity to your answers. It feels like you have to reorganise your thoughts, maybe do more digging and exploring. But it's not enough to think, because thoughts are like fireflies. Instead, we have to write.

Back in 2005, I decided to teach the skill of article writing.

I already knew how to write articles, or so I thought. However, the moment you create a course, you realise that you have a lot of gaps in your instruction.

You realise this because the questions come in a trickle, but often in a torrent. Many of these questions seem mundane enough until you start writing out the answer. That's when you realise you need to “do some research”.

Which is odd, isn't it?

You are doing “research” on what you should already know. That's particularly true because writing exposes the holes in your knowledge. This means that you are answering the client's questions while fixing the fumbles in your understanding of the subject matter.

It's also the moment when something unexpected happens.

It's common to start writing an answer, then land upon an entirely different issue that needs solving. For instance, I may start writing an article on creating “reverse testimonials”, and then discover something I wasn't expecting.

While taking screenshots of the “reverse testimonials” on our site, I realised there were different aspects to the testimonials. Some were exceedingly long, and others were not more than a few lines long.

Some stayed on topic and explained why the product suited them, while other testimonials spoke about their perceptions and had nothing to do with the product. As I dug, I started to find a whole new set of angles to “reverse testimonials”.

Who am I writing for? Myself or my client?

The question seems logical enough, but the answer is anything but clear-cut. Sometimes we write for ourselves. I will draw for myself. I have kept a daily visual diary of my life since 2012. I've done things that are purely for my benefit.

Sometimes, I've had a client's question and realised I don't have a neat enough explanation. The most exciting moment is when you set out to answer a question, only to find a treasure trove of questions no one has been asking.

This level of insight is your own.

It's a discovery you make in your own time, driven by your intense curiosity. If you're the kind of writer who wants to populate your website, then you're unlikely to take this route.

After all, this new level of digging means you have to consider a set of questions that haven't been asked. Your work has increased many times, so why bother if all you want to do is write yet another article?

People have many motivations to write.

I write because I want to find the answer to a question that exists. Or maybe one that's yet to see the light. Essentially, you're writing to discover what you know, and what you want to know.

Writing is a discovery of YOU.