My day job is running a software company, but my identity as a creator is still deeply tied to being a writer.

Even in my role, much of the value I provide is through clear written and verbal communication (which starts with writing as well).

But I wasn’t always a writer.

In fact, I mostly hated writing until my last semester of my senior year of college.

That semester, I took a break from my dual majors in accounting and finance. I took a leap and decided to study abroad with my then girlfriend, now wife, @_nicolebrooks1.

We took a couple of risks:

1) Studying abroad together is effectively a binary outcome decision. You either end up ruining the relationship or on a fast track to get married. It was almost the first and became the latter as we learned to travel together.

2) We chose a program based on its academic rigor as opposed to the typical approach of choosing a destination based on adventure / ability to party and then studying whatever is available in that destination.

We were off to @UniofOxford for a semester.

The format of our classes in Oxford was:

- Small class sessions with 2-4 students and a don (professor)
- Classes are debate sessions about our ideas
- Ideas are communicated through weekly written papers of 8-10 pages
- The papers are based on a single question & a bibliography

Example question might be:

“What factors have contributed to the Israel-Palestine conflict and will there or won’t there be a resolution in our lifetime?”

We’d get the question at the end of class, attached to a 5-6 page source list with 100s of potential sources listed.

There’s no right answer and no possible way to read all sources.

You have six days to write a compelling paper structured around a central thesis. Done well, it needed to prove you had done the groundwork to understand the question and provide a compelling argument.

What to do?

I had done almost 0 writing in my academic career and exactly 0 writing worth reading.

The idea of writing an 8-10 page paper for each class each week was DAUNTING in itself.

My work showed my lack of experience. My early papers were bad. Notes from the dons affirmed this fact.

My strategy was to find the library (there were many!) with the greatest concentration of source material. I’d grab all the sources I could find and start skimming.

From there, I’d select the ones that seemed most interesting to me.

Then I would read for days.

At the last possible moment, I would start writing. Usually 18-24 hours before the paper was due.

It was a marathon of synthesis and verbalizing the early ideas I had formed during my research.

It was *so* hard at first. It felt like I was running through quicksand.

Slowly I grew more confident in my process. I knew how much time I needed to write the number of words necessary.

My ability to communicate ideas improved. Debating the ideas in class (and being forced to take up the other side of the debate) helped improve further.

200+ pages of writing later, I was not a great writer. I was probably not even a good writer.

But I had a process I could follow. I had the confidence from capturing an idea worth sharing at least once.

That experience formed the basis of my identity as a writer.

The moral of this story is not “go study at Oxford.”

The moral of the story is to do a lot of writing. Do it intentionally.

Set boundaries. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Find someone you trust to critique your work.

Most of all, don’t stop writing because you’re a bad writer.

If you love the process, keep writing.

Eventually you’ll be an ok writer. Then a good writer. Some day, with enough work, you might write a great piece or two.

It only takes one to be known as a great writer.