The Micro-Essay: How To Never Run Out Of Things To Write About

Welcome back to Monday Experiments, and today I want to introduce a new way for all of you to get involved with our work on A Mug of Insights.

In my experience, the best way to provide value is to help real people solve real problems, and after sifting through my inbox on Sunday, I realised that my best advice comes from my email replies to people who write to me.

So, for the next few weeks, I’ll design an experiment around one comment, email or an interesting DM as part of an experimental office hours series, and our first question came from Sean.

Sean wrote a long and thoughtful email around an issue he’s been dealing with: freezing in front of a blank page. For context, Sean is a high school student who recently entered an essay competition, but after writing a page, he couldn’t continue.

‘I was intimidated, thinking there was no way I could write anything worthy of a good submission.’

But after this first ‘freezing incident’, he pulled himself together, wrote a few brilliant application essays, and landed a great internship at a prestigious museum. And now, he is looking for ways to make essay writing a part of his life.

‘Not only do I want to improve my writing, but I want to make it a habit, learn to love it, and elevate my skills as someone who wants to pursue the humanities.’

Now, from what I can see, Sean’s two problems are:

• 1: Freezing in front of the page
• 2: Struggling to maintain a daily writing practice

And the quickest way to solve them is to write a weekly micro-essay; let me explain.

0: Why we freeze in front of a blank page

Most people think freezing in front of the page = they’re out of good ideas. In reality, there’s little correlation between the two.

In fact, the writers who are blocked come from having poor mind-page connection. This is how you get someone who can talk a leopard out of its spots, but struggles to write a short, 150-word email.

In most cases, good writing only happens when a good idea clashes with a great mind-page connection. To use a martial arts analogy, you can only spar well if you’ve got your basic blocks and punches dialled in.

And just like the basic blocks and punches, mind-page connection isn’t some magic Shaolin technique but a series of muscle reflexes that takes time to develop. This includes writing a simple sentence, knowing your grammar rules and channelling your writing style. I’ve covered all of these in a comprehensive workshop, and you can check it out here:

Essentially, you want your basics to become effortless, to the point where you can write 500-700 words on command about any topic that lands in your lap. And because writing is the highest form of thinking, you’ll notice a shift in the way you think & speak as well. In other words, mind-page connection is the holy grail in the craft of thinking and writing well.

Hence, an effective daily writing ritual has to strengthen your mind-page connection, and the best way to get there is to write a micro-essay every week.

1: The 3-act formula for a micro-essay