My Favorite Writing App

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. - Ira Glass

My favorite writing editor is the Most Dangerous Writing app. The idea is simple. Once you start writing, you keep writing for a set amount of time. If you pause or hit "delete" too many times, your writing fades into oblivion--with no way of getting it back.

Why do I like such a horrible, uncompromising editor when I can theoretically spend an infinite amount of time in a normal editor meticulously pondering over every word?

Because if I were writing in a normal editor, I would spend an infinite amount of time meticulously pondering over every single word. I would never get any writing done!

Using the Most Dangerous Writing app is like turning on my creative tap and letting all the dirty water out. It makes me realize that my ideas--especially initially--aren't so precious that I need to think so hard about planning them.

I go through at least two 5-minute iterations before I know what I am saying.

A lot of us would benefit from a general Most Dangerous app. For eg, something that forces you to start many crappy businesses in a short amount of time. Or something that forces you to build several software projects. Or something that forces you to create many videos.

In the beginning, a lot of what we create disgusts us. We need to find ways to endure this feeling and just hit publish.