"sam is typing..."

I've been following some common advice since I started writing on this blog more. I've been reading my posts out loud before publishing them. This is basically restating the Paul Graham article in my own words, because restating things that you know is important...And because it's my blog.

The main idea is that you can express complicated ideas in simple sentences, but it's hard to do in writing. You can simplify any writing by imagining you're talking to someone you know and reading out loud. I feel like this is making a huge difference to my writing. It's also making it feel way less formal - which is amazing because I don't want to sound formal. I'm not a formal person, but my writing often heads in that direction.

I've found this approach works best at the editing stage. The structure of the piece needs to be in place already or that gets conversational too. Conversational structure isn't easy to follow outside of an actual conversation. The goal for me is to sound more approachable and write in simpler sentences. It isn't to write a mess of thoughts and ideas that don't follow on from each other.

I'm going to continue with this little tool. It might mutate over time, but I'm pretty happy with it for now. If you have any ideas about how I could get better, feel free to drop me a message on twitter