3100 B.C., the Egyptians invented hieroglyphs to organize the rules governing the land, life, and death. Egyptians believed that the god Thoth gave the hieroglyphs to them to make them stronger and wiser.
2016 A.D, 5000 years later, a software developer called Abe writes to his manager:
I try what you say and works. All subs pass normal as if this is imagine and we want have users now but what is the real reason because works on my device!
Abe’s manager reads this sentence and asks 5 more follow-up questions. Finally, 30 minutes later, they manage to understand each other. If Thoth could read English and saw what Abe wrote, he would send the hieroglyphs to him to make him stronger and wiser right away. Abe is an amazing software developer, but he is missing a skill we all miss. Communicate in written form.
Some say that as long as we understand each other, it’s really not important how we write. And really, Abe’s 10 years of experience somehow support that. But could things be more efficient, if Abe’s communication skills were better? Wouldn’t he and his colleagues save more time if things were clearer from the start?
Little did Egyptians know, that what used to be their core principles on how life should be lived would be a tourist attraction 5000 years later. There is a good chance that how Abe’s writing, will be an Internet sensation after a while too.
The question concerning Abe and the millions alike, why is it so difficult to write concisely and clearly today?
The intention of this introduction is not to answer that question. It’s clear, the world today is remote and more multi-cultural than ever. People move, change places, and they speak English to talk to each other. But sometimes, talking in tagged English is not enough. We have to learn better.
When people think about writing, they often think about writers, authors, journalists, and so on. But things are much simpler than that. Writing efficiently, in the pandemic 2022, is more important than ever. We replaced our talking with writing. We are using tools for asynchronous communication and care less of how the others understand what we say in writing. Making it easy for other people to understand us, is our personal responsibility. Providing that opportunity, without the need for them to decipher what we mean as if we are speaking in hieroglyphs, means genuine care for them.
Don’t think about your process of learning how to write, as a process to become the next Mark Twain. It means you need to learn to communicate in written form, in a simple and precise way.
I wrote my first short story when I was 10 years old. Ever since I am trying to improve what I write on daily basis. My way to do that is by writing frequently and comparing the new with an older content. But of course, life happens and often I feel either blocked or overwhelmed with events, I cannot write. But if you don’t write, you will not have two points in time to compare if there is an improvement. And that is why, if you want to improve how you write, you need to write often.
I decided to start this series of articles that will explain my process of writing. Having the writing habit in place would mean a lot of things. You might want to improve your mental health or simply learn to communicate with others more efficiently.
Whatever it is, I hope you find these articles useful.
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