Panic Writing
The Art of Not Slowing Down
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When I looked back over recurring themes in my writing over the course of 2023, one of the ones that stuck out to me was my method of "panic writing." I first started describing my process of writing this way when people would ask me how I'm so consistent. The first time I put it in my writing, I believe, was in September 2023 for a piece called "On Writing":
"My process has changed a few times, but pretty consistently these days I only write on Saturday. I wake up at 4 or 5 AM, and just panic write until my kids wake up. Then, maybe I stumble through another hour or two after they wake up, trying to write while multi-tasking, getting them breakfast, and all that."
A lot of times my shorter posts come when I've bitten off more than I can chew in a big piece. This happened when I published Becoming An Allocator because I was trying to write The Value Chain of Capital, or when I wrote "Oops, I Did It Again" because I was trying to write Surviving The Death of Venture Capital. Funny enough, both of those pieces went on to become some of my more popular ones.
Increasingly, even when I do write pretty big pieces, like Books 2.0 last week, I still have to admit that panic writing has forced me to leave out some interesting threads I could have pulled on.
While I naturally started calling it "panic writing," I was turned on to the fact that this is how Matt Levine talks about it too from a comment on one of my posts from Chris Harvey that pointed me to an interview with Matt Levine:
"Mostly I have no repeatable process, I just wake up and panic until there’s a newsletter. I have been doing it long enough that the panic feels less overwhelming; I figure I have a good track record of producing a newsletter every day, so the odds that today’s the day it stops working are low. But I do text my friends most days saying “help I have nothing to write about” or “help I have forgotten how to write” or “help—today’s the day it stops working.”
Now, I'm no Matt Levine. And I write every week, not every day. And I think my process has failed to produce something good plenty of times (today is probably one of those times). In part, its because I have this complex interwoven set of ideas that fascinate me. And they all flow together. And they require a concerted effort to pull them apart. Yet, I frequently find that a part of the panic is not just the timeline, but my lack of skill.
Because of that continuous sense of inadequacy, I've find myself seeking out the thoughts and perspective of great writers, where historically I just focused on studying great investors and let the writing take care of itself. Increasingly, I feel like an inadequacy in my ability to write is an inadequacy in my ability to think.
That's led me to consuming content, such as David Perell's How I Write where I've gotten great advice from the likes of Kevin Kelly, and Derek Sivers. Granted, I'm just getting started. But increasingly, I'm more interested in how great writers have honed their craft because I've become so convinced that clear writing is clear thinking, and I want to think more clearly.
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As someone who *does* write every day, the reason that it's hard is because there's not always something worth saying. It's not unlike investing. You have to wait for your pitch.
I like this mainly because I actively avoid writing in a panic, on the grounds that it creates better content outcomes (or at least less trauma). However, it may be that the opposite is true and I really should panic more. I am inspired to experiment with terror. On the other hand, I do not miss the flashback exam nightmares I had for years after my 'panic finals'.