Summary

The article discusses the tension between the conventional wisdom of writing frequently to improve and the common advice of being cautious and selective with what one publishes to maintain a perception of wisdom.

Abstract

The article "Are We Writing Ourselves Into Idiocy?" delves into the paradoxical nature of writing advice, where new writers are encouraged to write and publish prolifically to hone their craft, yet are also cautioned to avoid speaking without adding value. The author reflects on personal experiences with silence and listening, drawing parallels between the discipline of holding one's tongue in conversation and the editorial discretion needed in writing. The piece references studies and anecdotes to illustrate the benefits of quantity in creative work, suggesting that the journey through mediocre output is necessary to reach excellence. The author concludes by advocating for a balance between restraint in publishing and the willingness to embrace the vulnerability of producing less-than-perfect work to grow as a writer.

Opinions

The author suggests that writing every day and publishing consistently could lead to producing subpar content, potentially making one sound unwise.
There is a belief that the internal editing process, akin to choosing when to speak, is crucial in writing to ensure that one's contributions are valuable.
The article posits that silence and listening can enhance the perception of wisdom, drawing from the author's experience of practicing restraint in conversation.
The author cites the example of a photography class to demonstrate that producing a large quantity of work can lead to higher quality outcomes through experimentation and learning from mistakes.
The 70–20–10 rule is presented as a framework for managing expectations about the quality of one's work, with the understanding that not all output will be exceptional.
The author encourages writers to accept the inevitability of producing some bad writing as part of the process of improving and invites readers to engage in the discussion about balancing quantity and quality in writing.

Are We Writing Ourselves Into Idiocy?

Conventional wisdom clashes with common writer’s advice

Even a fool is thought wise until he opens his mouth. -Proverbs 17:28

The exception to the rule is when he picks up a pen, right?

Muddling through one’s first week on Medium, a repeated theme emerges quickly.

Write every day!
Publish 5 times a week!
Writer’s write because they can’t not write! (Even when they use the same word three times in one sentence and cling to the artistic choice to use a double negative.)

This begs the question — if I write every day and publish consistently, am I doomed to sound like a babbling idiot?

Perhaps the proverb more keenly relates to the editing process than the writing process. After all, choosing when to hold your tongue and when to speak up is an internal editing process at its core.

I’ve always struggled with silence. It has taken years of effort to reign in my desire to fill a silence for the sake of it being filled. The idea of other people feeling uncomfortable makes me uncomfortable and the awkward spiral leads me to blurt something, anything, to stop it.

In my early twenties, I read the aforementioned proverb and decided to experiment with it. I was teaching English in China and surrounded by wildly interesting people. There were people who had lived through the Cultural Revolution. There were ex-pats with curious tales of what brought them abroad. There was even an Olympic ice hockey player who’d been on The Apprentice.

At any given time, I was far from the most interesting person in the room so it was easy to practice shutting my mouth and listening.

When I did decide to pipe up and say something, it had usually been rolling around in my brain for long enough to be rehashed once or twice and I had taken a few extra moments to discern that my comment truly added something valuable to the conversation instead of just adding noise. I had taken a moment to edit and thoughtfully weighed the choice to “hit publish” on my spoken words.

After all, fellow writer Jorge Luis Borges said “Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.”

The results were interesting. People tended to think that I was older than I actually was. They would ask me for advice. My silence seemed to raise the level of wisdom they perceived in me.

The Pomplamoose song “Be Better at Listening” urges a similar tactic. They even offer four tongue-in-cheek steps to help you master the skill of turning the focus to someone else in conversation. We used the catchy hook of the song to help our children remember to break out of their sometimes ego-centric habits and take turns listening to each other instead of just waiting for their turn to talk.

And as a human, I generally agree with all of the above. But as a writer, I’m back to the original quandary. How does this advice apply to establishing a regular writing discipline?

Most creatives agree on idioms like “quality through quantity” with good reason.

In Atomic Habits by James Clear, he relays the results of a photography class experiment where half of the students were graded based on the quantity of photos they turned in and the other half were graded only on the quality.

At the end of the term, he was surprised to find that all the best photos were produced by the quantity group. During the semester, these students were busy taking photos, experimenting with composition and lighting, testing out various methods in the darkroom, and learning from their mistakes. In the process of creating hundreds of photos, they honed their skills. Meanwhile, the quality group sat around speculating about perfection. In the end, they had little to show for their efforts other than unverified theories and one mediocre photo.

Furthermore, I read an interesting perspective on the 70–20–10 rule just this morning. Sean Kernan offers a double-take on this content creation ratio. Its original intent is to set expectations for the quality of your work. 70% will be just okay. 20% will actually be alright. And the top 10% — well that’s where the really good stuff is.

Kernan adds a different spin that will help you muddle through that 70% without getting burnt out or bored, and probably growing your writing in the process.

So if there’s wisdom in holding your tongue, but also wisdom in unleashing the tsunami of words in your writer’s brain — are we doomed to look like idiots if we ever hope to be great writers? Maybe…

For now, I think I’ve settled on two takeaways.

1) Hold my tongue.

Or rather, avoid the urge to hit publish immediately. Take the time to run my writing through Grammarly. Read it out loud to my husband. Sit on it for a day and come back to it with fresh eyes. Ask myself if this is a valuable contribution to the figurative conversation.

2) Be a little foolish.

If we’re doing it right, our bad writing is one of the roads that help get us to our best writing. Let’s be real, this is the internet. Opinions abound. They are not all kind. Not all of the unkind ones are untrue. If we want to participate in this arena, we’re going to need a thick skin. And if we want to be better writers, we must be willing to be at least a little bad at it first.

So what do you think? Are we doomed to ruin our reputations by oversaturating the world with our words? Or do you have a different take on how this translates to the writing world? I’d love to hear your thoughts.