I’m an aspiring writer. I write blogs, I’ve written two chapters in a book and I hope to write books in the future. It’s like any other craft that you want to get better at. You put time in, and you get better. The more you write, the better you get.

Why I write

Great stories endure long after their authors are gone, offering unique perspectives that only those with similar experiences can truly capture. As an immigrant to the US, I bring a distinctive viewpoint balancing roles as a software engineer, MBA holder, doer, and leader. Growing up in a bustling city, I navigated between my home language and others daily, eventually changing my accent to avoid constant repetition for those who couldn’t understand me. Once a restless child frequently in trouble, I learned to channel that energy, developing focus and discipline that built my career. These experiences shape how I see the world, and they’re stories I rarely find in literature. If I don’t write them, they may never be told. If I don’t write, who will? Others might write about us, but they peer in through opaque windows streaked with years of dust and rain. I want to wipe away that dust and paint a clear picture of my world. Perhaps it’s useful for others, perhaps not—but these stories deserve to be written.

On Writing well

Desire alone isn’t enough. Writing well ensures the craft doesn’t obscure the story. I’ve immersed myself in books on writing from authors across genres, absorbing their wisdom. These resources have proven invaluable. In what follows, I’ll share the insights I’ve gained and the techniques I’ve been practicing as I develop my voice.

Write in simple words. Write like you speak. Write like yourself.

If you don’t use fancy words when you speak, don’t use fancy words when you write. After you write, read it out loud. If it does not flow, and sounds awkwardly put together, thats what it will feel like to the reader as well.

Be yourself when you write. Your voice is uniquely yours and will get diluted, and valueless if you try to sound like someone else. Write about things you care about. Write about things you know about, and have strong opinions about. If you don’t care or know enough about something, don’t write about it, unless you think of writing as a way to learn. It’s ok to take a stand. It’s ok to be different. You don’t have to be but it’s ok if you are.

Clarify your thoughts.

Take time to clarify your thoughts. Once your thinking is clear, your writing will become clear. Don’t expect to sit down and crank out 40 pages of clear writing on day one. It’s going to take time and draft after draft, before you get there. And that’s ok.

Go back the next day and read what you wrote. Let your mind wander a bit, think about what you wrote, see how you feel about it now that your brain has had some time to think about it. You might have additional ideas come to you now. Or you might see gaps in your writing that you didn’t see before. You can fill those gaps now.

Stay consistent.

Stay in a consistent voice all through your writing. That does not mean speaking in a monotone. If you started in a tense, stay in that tense all through. If you started writing informally, stay that way instead of going back and forth. If you start writing in the first person, about your experience, stay that way till the end of the work. Sure, there can be surprises and twists in the plot, but keep your voice consistent.

Show your work and don’t wait for that perfect version.

Write and share your work with folks. Get feedback from a few trusted folks first. Make changes based on their feedback, and then put it out again. If you are writing technically, pick a couple of technical reviewers so they can point out missing details, factual errors, irrelevant tangents etc etc. If possible get a couple of non technical reviewers as well. Someone that is not in the weeds, or not as close to your work or your domain but might be closer to your target user. They can give you feedback on voice, do some editing for you, show you were your dots don’t connect etc.

Don’t let perfect get in the way of good. Write a first draft. Make it better. Give it some time. Let it breathe and then go back and make it better again. No one see’s the first draft. It’s for you. Don’t let the first version, regardless of how bad it is, stop you from writing.

Grammar and Spelling.

I care about grammar and spelling. Its not because I’m a purist about language or because I’m a rule follower. I just think that spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes are distracting. People notice them, and they lose track of what they are reading each time they notice an error. At some point, if there are too many errors, it paints a picture of a hastily put together piece of work where the Author and Editor both have low standards. I try to use a spell checker, or Grammarly to help with this.

Advice from books that I’ve read

There are a few books that I’ve read that have been helpful. I’ll share some of the advice that I’ve found useful.

Advice from the book ’On Writing Well’: Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Put brackets around every component in a piece of writing that is not doing useful work. Then cut them. Avoid clutter. I was going to say, Avoid clutter like the plague and then after reading this paragraph, I heard the hypocrisy.

Advice from the book ’Bird by Bird’: Write sh1tty first drafts.

Write a first draft. It’s going to be bad. That’s ok. Write a second draft. It’s going to be better. Write a third draft. It’s going to be better. Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t wait for the perfect version. Write. Write. Write.

Advice from the book ‘Pity the Reader’: Write like a human being. Write like a writer.

Here’s a great Kurt Vonnegut quote, “Write like a human being. Write like a writer.” This is great advice and you should listen to him. He advices writing with simplicity and clarity, writing with genuine emotion and avoiding pretentiousness. In urging folks to write like a writer, he is asking that we treat writing like a craft, something to be learned, improved and constantly honed.

There’s another great Vonnegut quote that talks about needing to get all the bad stuff out, before you can get to the good stuff. It goes like this, “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” That’s how I feel when I write. I know there’s a good version in there somewhere but there’s a lot of cruft I need to go through, and discard before I get to the good stuff.

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