The two best writing tips I ever received – and what they mean in the AI era

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” — Picasso

Mar 28, 2025

Studio Ghibli character *Shizuku Tsukishima* writing in a notebook. This was the original lo-fi girl until the channel got taken down, and a new version was created.

I remember once telling my friends: if I’m not writing, I’m not happy. I started writing young and published poetry in my school paper. Then I started writing lyrics, taking part in competitions on hiphop forums. I wrote columns for my clan in an online game called Planetarion. Eventually, I picked up blogging and committed to a weekly posting schedule when I launched my old newsletter, MUSIC x.

I’ve had great teachers along the way. Techdirt’s Mike Masnick was the first editor I worked with, and I learned how to tighten up my pieces from him. Water & Music’s Cherie Hu has been a phenomenal editor, with incredibly detailed feedback, often returning documents with few sentences left untouched. Ouch. Humbling and a great learning experience.

But there are two specific tips I got that are powerful through their simplicity. They’re easy to remember, yet filled with so many implications.

Write every day

Two years ago, I found myself in Sofia, Bulgaria, where I had previously lived, for the SoAlive Music Conference. One of their keynote speakers was legendary music journalist and senior editor at Rolling Stone, David Fricke, and I was pleased to see him at various concerts in the evenings. Unfortunately, at music business conferences, the music programming typically gets overlooked by many professionals for the sake of networking dinners. I always enjoy connecting with the people who take every chance they can get to explore new music instead.

After a concert finished, I briefly chatted with David. At the time, I was feeling quite uninspired. I thought I had written all that I wanted to say about the topics I covered in my old newsletter. I felt blocked. So I asked him about his experiences with writer’s block. His answer was simple, almost disappointingly so: write every day.

What I like about the tip is that it’s focused on the act of writing. It’s not about the end result. Just write. You don’t need to publish everything you write. Just write and see what flows out. Over the decades, I’ve probably ditched more paragraphs than I’ve published. Every so often, I might be working on an article, and I’ll suddenly remember that I penned down some thoughts on the topic years before. That can then be edited in or just used as inspiration or a thought-starter.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” — Picasso

The tip also reminds me of one of the exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a book about creative recovery. For the duration of the 12-week program, she asks you to do ‘Morning Pages’: every day, grab 3 sheets of paper and start writing. Fill them with thoughts. Stream of consciousness style. If you don’t know what to write, then just write that on the paper over and over until you get bored and other thoughts start flowing out. It’s a great way to bypass your inner critic. You then put the sheets away, and you don’t look at them again. This way, you avoid putting yourself into an evaluative mode when you sit down to write your future morning pages.

The takeaway: Writing is a muscle. The more you use it, the easier it becomes. If you want to write, write. Daily.

(And don’t worry if you slip; be gentle on yourself)

“If you can’t be bothered to read it, how can you expect someone else to read it?”

My high school Natural Sciences teacher, Mr. Wagenaar, was exasperated by the low quality of essay submissions. They were filled with all kinds of mistakes, leading him to the conclusion that most people didn’t even proofread their work before submitting it. He always emphasised that science wasn’t just about the research; how you communicate that research is even more important. So he made his point by asking us: if we couldn’t even be bothered to look over our work before submitting it, why should he be interested in reading it?

Proofreading your work can be a pain in the ass, but it’s crucial for the quality of your content. I’m a restless person. Once I finish my first draft, I can’t wait to get it out. I used to find proofreading excruciating. Then, over time, I learned to write in a way that made proofreading tolerable and, eventually, even satisfying. If you can’t write in a way that is interesting for you to re-read before sharing, then why would it be worth anyone else’s time?

Writing in the age of AI

It’s been less than 24 hours since the internet turned every meme from the past 20 years into the style of Japanese animation studio Ghibli. One of the clearest cultural moments of the draining of meaning from art that essayist

Erik Hoel

calls the ‘semantic apocalypse’. You can see examples of this in the compilation video below, shared by /u/rafa-Panda on the AgentsofAI subreddit.

TW: contains images of violent historic events.

In the context of the great Ghibli AI flood of 2025, let’s look at these two writing tips again and consider their implications:

Write every day: it’s easy to get lazy. In my month-long experiment of leaving my phone at home, I quickly discovered that I was relying on Google Maps far more than I needed. I wasn’t using my brain to navigate; I was using my phone — AI, even. Tools like ChatGPT are powerful and extremely useful. I use it pretty much daily for things like navigating the complexities of German bureaucracy whilst not (yet) being fluent in the language. I use it to help me write messages. It’s easy to get lazy and to just outsource your writing to this tool, but it will come at a cost. AI, at least the current models, would not be able to come up with a Ghibli-like aesthetic, hone it, and create quality so consistently. It’s the same with writing. The more AI you use in your writing, the more of your personal expression gets lost.
Proofreading your work: many people will use AI to write for them. I get it. Writing can be intimidating and time-consuming. If you do use generative AI for writing, be mindful of your readers. How much time do you expect people to spend reading a text that you only spent a minute to create? Due to the convenience of these tools, people are already being flooded with content. Loads of it generic. Collaborate, but make it your own. Earn your readers’ attention through effort.

Before concluding this section, I want to acknowledge the perspective of Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli, on generative AI. The last 48 hours must have been rough for the 84-year old animator. After being shown an AI demo during the filming of a documentary, he remarked:

“I fear we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.”

"I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself." — In a gesture of typically cynical cyberculture irony, shots from the documentary have gotten the Ghibli AI treatment themselves.

So, hopefully, by sharing these tips, which are easy to remember and execute, you can find more joy in writing and find a healthy, deliberate balance in how you utilize the latest innovations.

Share yours

These two tips, in their simplicity, have been so valuable to me in increasing the quality of my writing, as well as the joy I get out of it. There are many smaller, more specific tips, but none that evolve with you over time quite as well.

I’m curious to hear about what advice has stuck with you. Drop a comment or send me a message. <3

Calm & Fluffy

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