WWN18: How to Be Excellent

Dear Write Way Readers,

We come again to another excellent Write Way Newsletter, this time on excellence.

And it doesn’t even mention the backs of Steve Jobs’ Dad’s Cabinets.

(I know, that’s practically illegal but there you go.)

The reason for this topic is that right now I’m buried in study and writing for some “reader’s guides” I’m creating for a Crossway Study Bible on some of the Psalms.

These reader’s guides are short, punchy, 150-word guides for kids aged 8-13.

So you’d think that I’d read the texts, maybe scan through a book explaining it, and then bash them out.

That would be the guru way.

But it’s not the Craftsman Writer way.

Instead, this is the stack of books I’m working through:

I texted the picture to my friend Wade from The Understory Bard with the comment “So much sweat and study going into a few 150 word guides haha” and he replied:

“That’s why you are good at what you do.”

Which got me thinking about Excellence, and how you can develop it as a writer in this one simple way…

…but before I get onto that, mentioning Wade reminds me that he and I are running round two of the Ghostletter Seminars at the start of September.

So if you want to develop excellence in “Writing As A Service”, and have Wade show you exactly how to turn that into a business that pays you upwards of $1,000 per client?

Tap the link below. No obligation, but we already have seventy or more people on the waitlist, so if you’re not on it there’s no guarantee you ever hear about it again.

Join the waitlist

But whether or not you’re in there, you’re gonna want to learn how to create excellence in your writing so here goes.

And you’re not gonna like it.

Because the secret is:

Do more than you have to.

Which is all I have to say…

…but I’ll do more anyway.

Why am I reading seven different commentaries, multiple translations and more - just to write 150 words for kids?

Because I’m deliberately choosing to make it more difficult than it needs to be in order to make it more excellent than it would be.

Far too many writers are being seduced by guru Content Creatooooors who want to tell them how easy it can be if they just follow their eight step system or whatever.

“All you need to do is copy succcessful content and use the same hooks!”

“You can write emails in ten minutes using these plug and play formats!”

“This almost illegal google doc AI hack will write your novel in nine minutes!”

But the craftsman writer rejects this half-assing mindset. We’re not interested in making it easy.

We want it to be excellent.

And we’re willing to put the work in.

Ben Settle talks about this a lot and he got it from somewhere I refuse to look up because not all effort is worth it but he calls it:

Forward Intent.

I.e. purposely making everything 10% harder.

But I want to nuance it a bit.

Because harder isn’t always better.

(In writing, anyway. No comment on other areas of life.)

After all, I could type this while riding a unicycle on the back of an elephant which is walking a tightrope and that would be tough but it wouldn’t improve the writing.

(Fun fact, I once trained jiu-jitsu with the man who held about 16 unicycle world records. Smallest wheel on a unicycle, largest wheel, fastest unicycle rider etc. My personal favourite though was “most wheels on a unicycle”, which sounds silly until you realise they’re all stacked on top of each other, like cogs.)

No, true forward intent is “doing the one step more than anyone else is willing to do”.

It is, to take examples from my own writing…

Adding internal rhymes to each line of a hymn, making it ten times more difficult to write. (I won’t link it because I’m not one-hundred percent happy with it yet, but it definitely stretched my skills.)

Writing an entire hymn as an acrostic even though nobody will ever notice.

Reading seven different commentaries for those short guides I’ve already mentioned so that even thought I will never put any of that detail in there - I understand the passages at a deeper level in order to teach them in a simpler way.

And many more similar cases that I shan’t bore you with. Instead, consider this from a far greater writer, Umberto Eco:

That’s exactly what excellence looks like:

Planning out your dialogue to take exactly the time it would take your characters to make their journey - instead of just writing a bunch of dialogue and hoping nobody noticed they spent ten minutes talking on an eight minute walk.

Maybe nobody would notice.

But there would be a faint feeling of “not quite right” about it that would prevent it being such a masterpiece.

It’s all about being willing to do that bit of extra work.

That depth and flair.

That’s what makes you excellent.

So go now and do likewise,

And until next week, may your pipe and your writing be packed with detailed care and burn the brighter for it,

Yours,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer

fin

Today’s Craftsman’s corner is a little writing exercise to help you increase excellence. For active subscribers only:

If you’re not an active subscriber then this particular bonus has vanished like mist in the morning sunlight and shall never be seen again.

But there’s still time to sign up before the next one, which you can do right here:

Oh, and allow me to add a P.s. which is that as I said, Wade and I are running round two of the Ghostletter Seminars at the start of September.

So if learning to build a “Writing As A Service” business is something you’re interested in?

Tap the link below. No obligation, but we already have seventy plus people on the waitlist, so if you’re not on it there’s no guarantee you ever hear about it again.

(That’s seventy-two on my list plus however many Wade has)

Join the waitlist

ciao.