how to write more

What do I write about? I don’t have a unique insight? How do you define unique? By the time you those words are jotted down on some digital parchment, it will be so twisted it can’t be not unique. If it contains the arc on what problem you solved, your personal struggles and how you overcame them, its unique enough.

The hard part? How do you make it interesting to the readers? How does it benefit them? Who is it for? Likely a younger version of yourself or a friend. How do you remove the superfluous crap from your writing. Does it make the reader laugh or lean in? PG has an excellent

I believe with any skill — focus on repetition so start writing more and second with deliberate practice through reflection and the editing process, the skill will come.

I struggled with this the same way everyone does so here are some key mindset interventions that worked for me.

• Think you’re talking to friend at a dinner party. Unless you’re the shy type, I don’t much have to offer there. Hopefully you learnt to love talking to yourself during the pandemic. I did and its glorious.
• Lists, lists and more lists. When I have an idea, I need to go beyond just a title to make it sticky and motivating to write on it at some future time. So instead of writing an entire essay down or expecting I’m going to remember it at some future time, we never do, I jot down key bullet points immediately. They could be auxillary ideas, or a nuanced take, or some alternate paths one could explore.
• Generating questions. The best way to learn is to ask a ton of questions. So if you’re reading something just start plotting down every single things that pops up in your head. What’s confusing? What about Y? Think in questions as they may have infinite solutions.
• My latest unlock in 2025 has been dictation. Ideating and refining and reflecting written prose trigger a different part of your brain so being able to separate them is key. But just like how we get endlessly distracted with social media when trying to get things done, we edit instead of remaining in the idea machine. Dictation [aids] the separation. Several exist but I have yet to find a better performing one than Whisprflow.

Why should you write? I covered this in my first point on key learnings to my younger self so won’t repeat here.

What do I write on?

Anything and everything.

• Your key insights from the book you last read.
• Maybe a rebuttle to some other post or podcast you had a point of view on.
• Copy the timestamps from a podcast and ask yourself what you think about each of those topics.
• The latest tweet that pissed you or intrigued you?
• The struggles from your latest changelog or product you shipped. Is shipping that easy? Something went wrong, write about it.
• Maybe you liked some other writers blog headline and wanted your own list.
• What about your latest AI workflows?
• Have you ever had a conversation with a friend and thought it was an intersting rabbit hole you should explore more?
• Some graph chart you came across and wanted to learn more on?
• I recently came across An unofficial FAQ for Stripe’s new “Tempo” blockchain. If you’re reading a new whitepaper in AI or blockchain, this is a digestable form of learn complex topics.
• Noteworthy given the AI maze 1 , create a how i use ai and how to prompt guide for whatever you fancy. This point alone and in what depth you share it is very insightful. What are the collection of prompts you’ve used? While not all tools today support it, being able to share your prompt threads along with your work is excellent learning material.

eliminate friction

This isn’t a tools list, although I rely on several tools to help me get things done quicker, but the the entire system that helps me write more. If you’ve done the above, you shouldn’t have a writers’ block.

1. Octarine as my primary writing editor; its creator cares about its performance, its local so it works without internet (and distraction) and the files are stored as markdown so you can port them in their raw form. One clever feature is their sync to Github that allows me to build my own branded domain which you’re likely reading right now.
2. Noteworthy, with some initial work upfront, I don’t have to do additional work and writing simple markdown files locally, automates my custom site. It’s all rendered on writing.artivilla.com and furthur filtered for AI posts to https://raisinganagent.com. TODO: how I built this blog. TODO: publish site on both domains.
3. Toggle menu bar so it removes the need to view the time and increase flow state.
4. Edit using Claude Code. As they’re text files I do postedits on my tone of voice and grammar using ‘edit posts’ prompts detailed in how i use ai workflow.
5. Using Raycast Focus to nudge me a general reminder I need to remain in flow state.
6. MyMind that helps me keep visual tabs on books I’ve read, article excerpts I need to reference.
7. I frequently screenshot excerpts from books that I port using Airdrop and then parse using ScreenOCR, another helpful Raycast plugin*.
8. The biggest struggle for me is setting a fixed time to sit down and write. I’ve been learning to make time and be bored, the silence often drives my brain void, which motives me to write more. Funny how the brain works.
9. Dia browsers’ chat panel built into the browser has been particulary useful when trying to learn new things. The friction of copy pasting entire pages into a chat app isn’t as friction-free. It’s a lot easier to ask, ‘what does this mean?’ and highlight the except inline.

*entire list to my raycast plugins