Writing as thinking
Thoughts to come.
Think and Write, with Leslie Lamport:
A less obvious reason to improve your writing, is to improve your thinking. You should think before you write. You should think before you do anything, because it will help you understand what you’re doing, which will help you to do it better. And as someone said, “Writing is nature’s way of showing you how fuzzy your thinking is.” If you think you understand something, and don’t write down your ideas, you only think you’re thinking. To think clearly, you need to be able to write down your ideas clearly, which requires being able to write well.
Paul Graham’s Putting Ideas into Words:
Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn’t know it as well as you thought. Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won’t just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that’s why I write them.
Andy Matuschak’s Writing forces sharper understanding:
Writing is a great way to put pressure on your thinking: it’s hard to summarize something you don’t sharply understand. By trying to explain an idea, you’ll naturally try multiple framings, flesh out its edges, and see new connections.
I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
(Go read Joan’s article, please. Now there’s a writer.)