11/26 2023
I think advice on how to get better at something --- writing, programming, reading, nearly anything --- can be reduced to one principle: just do it. Hemingway says as much (and therefore it must be true):
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
We buy 10 different books with 10 different ways that we ought to perform woodworking instead of just trying to build a bookshelf and then fail and then trying again. We enroll in courses in how to write like other good writers by the good writers themselves instead of spending time actually writing. And that is obviously not good.
The brain is smarter than we give it credit for, I think. The brain cannot do something over and over again without [sub-]consciously trying to optimize/improve the way to do that thing if we focus on it. If we attempt over and over again to write a novel we will start to pick up on patterns that helps to write better next time. Patterns emerge from and by themselves. The same goes for other things.
Take sewing. First time you sew something you follow the instructions but as you fail over and over again your brain starts to form patterns in how to do certain small things that aren't stated in the instructions. These small things eventually accumulate to form something much larger. Those small things are things that you simply cannot learn through theory. Some of it is in virtue of being physical (like learning the soft and gentle but stern grip you have to have when sewing through denim with a sewing machine) and some of it is in virtue of being mental (like learning to talk with your characters in fiction writing).
There is obviously a place for theory though, don't get me wrong. But it should be far from the most important aspect of any endeavor to improve one's ability to e.g. write, paint, sew etc. What matters is the doing. Always.