Missed a day of writing as per my rules — even if not entirely because I worked on The Social Dilemma article, but it doesn’t matter.
Here is a backdated donation for the WWF. Their mission is to preserve habitats, wildlife species, and stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment.
I do not feel well.
I have nausea and somewhat light-headed, maybe because I’m low blood pressure. I should rest.
This is the best update I can do today.
Backdated donation for missing a day. Alice, a friend, was doing a fundraiser for her birthday, and I had to contribute! ❤️
Typically I won’t publish donations, but I think it’s for a good cause.
The AIL is an Italian non-profit organization that promotes and supports research against blood diseases. The acronym stands for “Associazione Italiana contro le leucemie-linfomi e mieloma”, which should translate as Italian Association against Leukemia-lymphomas and myeloma.
To do or not to do, this is the dilemma.
Today I’ve asked myself if I wanted to write or not. I had a lot of free time, though I procrastinated this task by reading a book, scrolling the news, and watching TV as I didn’t for a long time.
In the last few hours, I became aware that I’ve skipped a day because I wanted to; well, not literally because I’m typing this just now, but you got me.
Sometimes during the day, I felt like I had to. And I’ve asked myself why.
From what I can tell, I felt compelled.
It looks like we are so blind pursuing the goal that we lose our inner focus at a certain point.
Take a breath; it’s not a race.
When I realized this, it has made all the difference. And I wrote again with joy.
PS: I’ve seen Netflix’s new documentary, “The Social Dilemma.” Something crashed on me. I will try to share my vision tomorrow.
As you might know, lately, I searched for books to write better content. Untangling myself in a long list of suggested readings, I’ve come up with a short version of titles about writing recommended by the experts. These are also the ones with the best reviews on Amazon as per today.
“If you want to be the best, you have to do things that other people aren’t willing to do.”
Michael Phelps
One of them is to study. The other is to keep practicing, and sharing my journey with you is part of it.
Here you find the 5 best books about writing non-fictional content and improving your writing skills. Handle with care.
Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Some Instructions on Writing and Life
The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
So Start Acting Like One
Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content
Is it normal to spend hours trying to roll the balls?
Write this article took me around 5.5 hours, split into three days of work. And it wasn’t my longest post.
But damn, it is the best in terms of style so far.
To me, writing is like climbing a fucking mountain.
Sometimes it’s such a pain; I struggle; I procrastinate a lot. Yet, I’m sticking to the commitment.
From the next one, I would like to just go with the flow.
I will outline a draft without caring about the grammar. Only then, I’ll review everything and try to come up with a better version.
Tomorrow I should also receive “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser.
I cannot wait to get my hands on this book!
No available update today because I worked on expanding yesterday’s article.
Three things I would like to achieve soon:
Recently I was searching for books suggestions about writing. However unsuccessfully.
The day I’ve committed myself to write blog posts, I knew it would’ve been a challenge because of the daily time required and my limited English knowledge as a non-native speaker person.
But I started without caring about the outcome, yet seeking improvements every day and expanding my know-how along the way.
It may sound cryptical but follow me.
Do you know that reading three books on a specific topic puts you ahead of 99% of the people on that topic?
On average, people don’t read books. Let alone three books about a single subject!
So we can climb to the remaining 1% swiftly, even considering that we are talking about 77 million people.
During my research, though, I stumbled on an issue.
There are no resources online which display the best books to read if you want to become an expert on a particular subject. There are databases, recommendations, charts, lists divided by categories, but nothing as detailed as I was looking.
Surfing the web like this is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Hence I’ve got an idea!
If it’s difficult for me, maybe it is challenging also for others.
I wanted to make a curated list of the best books that everyone should read to master a specific topic, such as marketing, writing, productivity, etc.
As for the first step, I let the idea flow out on a paper; writing down a list of questions helped me figure that I should test the demand with an MVP first.
So following Levelsio’s story about the early stages of the Nomad List, I created a quick spreadsheet on Google Sheets, where I started adding some data.
Once I set up the draft, it was time to gain some traction. I tweeted about the idea, asking help to collect data and validate the demand simultaneously.
After 48 hours, however, my tweet was seen 28 times only. Not enough.
I deleted the previous tweet by fault. I reposted it here.
I’m pretty sure the problem dwells in not having an audience.
I have less than 50 followers on Twitter, and most of them are people I met at the University a decade ago.
Thinking about ways to increase visibility, I could:
✅ Create an article about the best books to improve writing skills;
⬜️ Ask some friends abroad. I guess they are more inclined to help with this kind of stuff;
⬜️ Search and reply to tweets about books, or specific topics like marketing and productivity;
⬜️ Reply and engage on known authors’ tweets;
⬜️ Post in some Facebook groups, like the Smart Passive Income and others.
If those things don’t work, I may create it anyway and use it per my future reference. It would be useful in any case.
Eventually, I’ll win, or I’ll learn. 💪🏻
Why do we identify ourselves using labels?
I like.
I do.
I follow.
I listen.
I debate.
Not “I am this” or that.
So the real question is: why should we identify in something?
I am what I am; I do not belong to a political party; I do not recognize myself in a singer or a genre; I’m not a job.
I do, I follow, I listen.
We define labels to set boundaries, but they inevitably influence us.
For example, we say we are straight men, instead of telling others that we like women.
In the LGBTQ collective, they strive to represent other minorities, adding letters to their acronym. But being defined by terms puts a label right on your head, creating even more minorities for those who don’t belong to them.
Replace labels and live mind free on this beautiful planet.
Tell others what you like or do, not who you are.
You’re not a label. Especially not a label defined by others.
Daniel Vassallo, on Twitter
Didn’t have time to write anything today. I was out all day.
I’m not happy, but it happens.