If you’re not publishing, you’re just journalling

Derek Sivers once wrote that if you’re a writer who’s not regularly releasing your writings, you’re actually journalling.

Obviously, I’m feeling pretty smug in light of this, having published for the last 60 days straight.

But it is an important reminder. When left to my own devices, I will happily ruminate ad infinitum: threading together connections, creating new narratives and learning, learning, learning, without necessarily producing anything.

This is partly personal: I get loads of intellectual energy from it, even at 4am. It’s how I make sense of the world. But there’s a nagging sense when I look back on a clutch of caffeine-fuelled notes, and still feel unable to articulate the importance of an idea to someone else.

I estimate that I share only 20% of the notes I take, even when publishing daily. I think 20% is fine. Journalling and note-taking is an important staging room. There’s lots of personal reflection and wrangling that happens before I start articulating something interesting to others.

Publishing is also a kindness to the perpetual journaller. I once saw someone write: “I publish so I can be free of editing.”

Finally, getting things out there is the only way other people engage with you—the only way you get feedback. Feedback is such an inadequate word for the contemplative and intellectual process that unfolds as someone absorbs your ideas and offers their own. But it’s essential nonetheless.

If you aspire to be a writer, you have to hit the publish button regularly. Otherwise, you’re just journalling.