14 tips for masterful writing you won’t find in any writing manual

Fourteen years of writing online, mostly crap, with a few gems, has taught me much.

You will not read this in any formal writing guide.

Enter at your own risk…

Don’t share if it’s not awkward.

Share pieces that make you a little nervous. We live at a time where few speak the truth for fear of being politically incorrect.

The messages we see in the media and lots of content are smothered in delusion, wrapped in an additional layer of bullshit. People are ravenous for honesty.

Say what few dare say. Don’t get yourself banned — tread with awareness and grace — but don’t let that be an excuse to avoid being real.

Readers flock to those with courage.

Don’t be consistent.

Consistency is boring.

It’s almost as dull as: ‘discipline.’ Yawn. Instead, be relentless.

When you bring a warrior-like energy to even your daily writing, everything changes.

Consistency becomes effortless and inevitable. Attack with words. Show the world you mean business until they can’t help but gather around.

Write shit.

Stop trying to write a damn masterpiece off the bat. Write total crap. Put all of that rubbish on the page.

Yes sir. Now we’re talking. We’re not giving a live performance — take advantage of that.

You can work in the shadows to start and edit later. When you give yourself permission to write poorly, everything becomes easy. Now you’re in flow.

Give us your best.

Am I contradicting myself?

No. Don’t release average filler just because you plan to give us your best stuff behind a paywall, or in a newsletter. Everything you share must be your best. Start writing crap, but keep writing until your words become pure power and your eyes water.

Forget perfection, but make it great upfront when you publish.

Sexually transmute.

Do not mix sexual release and watching porn with writing.

Particularly for men, good writing rarely comes after you’ve recently exploded or you’ve been staring at a high-stimulation screen, dopamine receptors fried to shit. Sorry, just the way it is.

Sexual transmutation will give you an advantage like little else.

You will surprise yourself with what appears when you reconnect with the deepest and most wholesome part of you.

Think less about grammar.

The best writing needs to be tidy, and grammatically accurate, yes.

But this aspect only takes up a few percentage points of what comprises the best writing. It’s your willingness to open your heart and bleed on the page that does. It’s accepting that you need to kill a part of yourself that does.

Elite writing is always a sacrifice.

Cut sugar and sleep-inducing carbs.

When I start the day, one of the first things I do is write an article. I don’t write having ingested a ton of heavy carbs.

It’s either a couple of raw eggs or nothing. This makes for a clear, energised body and mind.

Break the rules.

Use templates and writing rules, but then throw them out.

When you’re new to writing, yes use templates and copy the greats. But the best writers relegate the rules to remote corners of their brains. They continually seek to obliterate the status quo.

They write to entertain, provoke, and inspire the hell out of themselves.

Write for the modern age.

This isn’t Kansas anymore, sweetheart. In case you didn’t notice, it’s the 2020s.

The fundamentals haven’t changed, but styles have. Conversational writing, for example, will connect more with most of your readers.

Stiff and formulaic journalism-esque styles may work to inform in some contexts, but generally, you want to keep it fun and loose.

Write like no one’s watching.

So many writers end up putting out flat words because they’re self-conscious as they write.

They self-censor and avoid saying certain things for fear of causing offence. When you’re sitting in a cafe working on that article, you’re providing a service people need.

Don’t dilute the words out of fear. You want to first write like no one’s watching — be outrageous.

Put it all on the page. You can always take out super-sensitive and unnecessary stuff after.

Be on a mission.

Write like you’re on a mission to change the world.

Think massive. Even if you are writing in a specific niche, you want to write like the whole world could change as a result of your words.

If you do, it will. I don’t care who you are, what colour your skin, where you’re from or how ‘privileged’ you are. You must write like you’ve been chosen.

Adopt a persona.

Be the person you need to be to deliver the message in the most impactful way.

You aren’t your ‘personality.’

You choose who that is. Have fun with this. Words can make you mythical. You can adopt the persona of a jester, a provocateur, a visionary, or a modern philosopher with a duty to share.

When you place fingers on keys, you are no longer you.

Go to the gym.

Your work will transform by becoming in parallel what I call: a ‘creative athlete.’

Writing isn’t just about the writing.

It’s about honing and maintaining your health as best you can in support of your writing and your life purpose. My best work always follows an intense and sweaty gym session.

It’s like the body rewards you for taking care of it with insane levels of productivity and insight.

Focus on problems you truly care about.

The best ideas come out of your genuine concerns.

What do you think about obsessively?

What do you wish you knew? What wakes you up in a sweat at 3am? What do you hate about the world?

Go there.

Use writing as a means to work through these problems and find solutions.

Let the reader in on this process.

They will love you for it.

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