I listened to this podcast several weeks ago and got an insight into a better way to look a writing. Maybe it will motivate me to write more blog posts. I spend so much time on my job writing to convey what I know. In the course of writing it, I always need to go back to source material or Google to refine the ideas. In doing so, I am improving my understanding. The idea in this interview takes this a step further: Write about something you don't understand, employ different areas of your brain, and come to understanding of that topic. Below is partial transcript of podcast with the relevant topic. I encourage you to listen to the whole thing and then write down your own opinions about it.
From Re:Thinking with Adam Grant Podcast, Season 1, Episode 8, October 11, 2022- How Celeste Ng Writes Fiery Prose: Apple Spotify Transcript
Celeste Ng: I always write from a place of not understanding versus I think some of what you're talking about where, especially in the non-fiction world, you research, you learn about something, you understand it, and then you write about it. Right? To share that, for me, it's almost, it's almost the reverse. There's something that's confusing me. I'm like, “Why would somebody do that? How did you get yourself into the situation? Why are you like this?” And writing for me is my way of figuring out what that is. And so by the end, when I've finished writing, then I have figured out what it is it, it can't go the other way for me. And I think that's one of the big differences between my process and sort of what you're describing.
Adam Grant: I think that a lot of people see writing as a vehicle for communicating ideas. But it's also a tool for crystallizing ideas.
Adam Grant: So often I find that what's fuzzy in my head becomes clear on the page. And that when I try to write down, you know, an inkling, it could become an insight, or in some cases, I'll see the gap in my knowledge or my logic, or when I'm trying to spell something out in writing, I have to articulate my assumptions. I have to address counterarguments, and I guess I think a lot about the observation of how can I know what I think until I see what I say.
Adam Grant: Or until I see what I write. And I think we, we do enact our way into our thoughts through writing. And I guess one of the things that makes me curious about is I meet a lot of people who say, “I'm not a writer”, and therefore they don't write. And it's kind of like saying, “Well, I'm not a public speaker on stage, so therefore I don't talk”, right? It’s like, wait, you're, you're missing the point that writing is a tool for thinking, and if you wanna be a better thinker, you should write more often. It sharpens your reasoning. What do you make of that?
Celeste Ng: writing is a way of thinking and that many of us, when we go to high school, you're taught to do it like you know, you should have your whole ideas, and then you basically just dictate them to yourself and write 'em down on the piece of paper.
Celeste Ng: Whereas I think it's much more what you said. You articulate something on the page and it crystallizes something that you hadn't been able to say. Or you write down what you think you know, and then you read it over and you go, “Well, but wait, what about this?” And you start to make it more complex. And so that was one thing that I really tried to teach them that, you know, they would write a draft and they'd be like, “I'm done.” And I'm like, “No, no, no. This is your thinking through, right? This is where you're starting to think.” Um, so I, I, I really agree with you on that. I really think that writing is, it's odd because it is both the skill you are trying to get, and in order to get it, you have to do it. Right? It's this thing that you learn to do. By doing it.
Adam Grant: Which is a paradox. I think I, I've watched a lot of people get away with… Well, let, let, let's put it this way. I, I've seen too many people get away with faulty logic because they’re charismatic speakers. And one of the things I love about putting ideas on a page is, is it forces ideas to live or die more on their merits, right? As opposed to how they're presented. And I think so often you find that, that somebody who's a captivating talker, uh, struggles to articulate their insight on the page. And that doesn't mean they can't write. For me, it means that their unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking, and they should stop using their charisma as a crutch, and, you know, force themselves to articulate ideas in a medium that doesn't benefit from, you know, their elocution or whatever skill is allowing them to be persuasive interpersonally.
Celeste Ng: Yeah, I think that's true because, you know, personal charm is real. Right? And like you said, if you write things down on the page, you take one of those variables out of the equation, you take away the variable of whatever your personal charisma or your, you know, your dramatic reading, whatever it is, your flare. And the, uh, you know, you can still certainly do a lot of pyrotechnics with your prose, but in some ways it, it takes away that layer of performance. And the other thing is that I think unlike something that is heard, like a speech, what's on the page is experienced at the reader's own pace. You can read it, and then they can read it again. Right? And they can read it again. And if they keep reading it and they're like, “I don't think you're saying what you think, you're saying.” They caught you. Right? And so in a way, like you say it, it kind of separates what you're saying from the act of saying it. It separates it from time and it has to hold up on its own.
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