A good writer doesn’t just think, and then write down what he thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing. And there is, as far as I know, no substitute for this kind of discovery.
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But if you need to solve a complicated, ill-defined problem, it will almost always help to write about it. Which in turn means that someone who’s not good at writing will almost always be at a disadvantage in solving such problems.
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You can’t think well without writing well, and you can’t write well without reading well. And I mean that last “well” in both senses. You have to be good at reading, and read good things. [2]
People who just want information may find other ways to get it. But people who want to have ideas can’t afford to.
Notes
[2] By “good at reading” I don’t mean good at the mechanics of reading. You don’t have to be good at extracting words from the page so much as extracting meaning from the words.
我一直觉得，写作是成本很低但很有效的一种思维锻炼。提高自己的写作最重要的途径就是阅读。