Also, practice. Keep writing. Write postmortems, discovery docs, blog posts, threaded tweets. Practice in multiple mediums and find your style.
One last bit of unsolicited advice: your job is writing. This is the best writing book I've ever read that deals with the issues I saw in your writing: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...
You can tell the author knows what they're talking about because the book is a really easy read!
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...
https://www.amazon.com/Help-Writers-Solutions-Problems-Write...
Honestly there isn't anything that you couldn't get by simply reading and applying the advice from "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White[1] and "On Writing Well" by Zinsser [2].
The primary philosophy is that if you can't write well, then you haven't thought it through. The act of writing is an act of reasoning.
0. Practice in a strong feedback loop. This applies for anything, not just writing.
1. Ruthlessly reduce your sentences. Repeat until you can't eliminate or combine any more words.
2. Avoid adverbs. Use "dashed" or "sprinted" instead of "ran quickly". Learn more words.
3. Avoid weasel words like "should" "could" "might". Take a stance and give concrete reasons.
4. Use concrete data over descriptors. "+5% profit" over "increased profit".
5. Write in active voice. Look up the "by Zombies" trick.
6. Use the simplest word that maintains your meaning. No one needs to use the word "utilize".
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/...
[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraction_(mathematics)
"A fraction is a number that shows how many equal parts there are. When we write fractions, we show one number with a line above another number, for example, (...) 1⁄4 or 1/4. The top number tells us how many parts there are, the second number tells us the total number of parts.
The top part of the fraction is called a numerator. The bottom part of the fraction is called a denominator. For example, 1/4: The 1 is the numerator here, and the 4 is the denominator."
vs the "English" one:
"A fraction (from Latin fractus, "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, three-quarters. A common, vulgar, or simple fraction (examples: 1/2 and 17/3) consists of an integer numerator displayed above a line (or before a slash), and a non-zero integer denominator, displayed below (or after) that line. Numerators and denominators are also used in fractions that are not common, including compound fractions, complex fractions, and mixed numerals."
> Is it that you think more about what you're saying?
I think this is one important reason - and key behind all good writing. Using a limited vocabulary is one way to force yourself to do that.
It's also a way to force yourself to examine what you write, and make sure you actually use words you understand, and not stray too far into your passive vocabulary and accidentally introduce ambiguity because you think you are using more precise words than you actually are.
I would also say that, while rich language can be fun, most writing can benefit from being simplified. Not everything needs to read like Paradise Lost.
In the words of Hemmingway: "Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself."
(Here with more context, than the traditional quip: "The first draft of anything is shit.", in order to emphasize that the point is that everything needs to be reworked).
On a similar note, I recommend that everyone who writes (ie: everyone) read: "On Writing Well" by Zinsser (himself a propoment of revisions, the book is in its 30th edition):
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/...
For the second advantage it depends where you want to do. If you want to stay a dev and only code then the best thing to do is to master your stack and learn complex things. By doing that you differentiate yourself and increase the barrier of entry. So for instance to learn C++, AWS, Machine Learning, Hadoop ecosystem, webgl... Depending your field and what can be the next big hard thing with it.
Else, the other way is to go up in the hierarchy to be a team leader and maybe to go higher. At first you have been (or should) start to learn how to manage people. You should know how to lead your team when things are doing well but also when things are at the worst. Sometimes you have deadlines that are hard to meet. Sometimes the stress is at the maximum, financially the company is not doing well, or goals and ideas diverge... It's all the experience you need to get to be able to manage these situations and start to be a great leader.
Also you -may- start to learn to master git to be a team leader, to be able to fix the problems, and manage the repo for the code reviews. Another point should be to increase your communication skill, every day by talking with your team, by enjoying to write well written emails and speeches. These books [1] are a good start. And also a last point that I think is important is to start to get financial skills with things like financial management, accounting, and if possible to be able to do simple DCFs...
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-4th-William-Strunk/dp/0...
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...
http://www.amazon.com/Pitch-Anything-Innovative-Presenting-P...
If the idea you note down is any good today, it'll be a good idea tomorrow too. And a year from now.
If you have enough good starting points, actually spending some time writing out an essay from them becomes easier. Remember you'll probably want to do at least three re-writes if you're hoping the result is going to be any good. Lots of people don't do that -- and it shows. Most half-decent blog posts would've been a lot better if the authors took the time to rework them a bit more. Or, according to Hemmingway: "“The first draft of anything is shit.”
So with the caveat that I don't actually write much (yet?), the best book I've read on writing is: William Zinsser's "On Writing Well": http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
Highly recommended for anyone that have to communicate in writing (ie: everyone).
> I don't have anything to say to people who know less than me, because explaining obvious things seems boring, and I don't know what to say to people on HN/LessWrong, because I feel like they are smarter than me and already know everything I am about to say.
For essays, it can be good to write for yourself. To yourself, or someone much like yourself, but someone who's perhaps not yet encountered one particular idea, one particular technique -- one particular subject.
That usually gives a good framework for avoid "talking down". Write to yourself of one, two or five years ago. There will be many that don't have that last year, years of experience and circumstance that led you down the path to were you are now. Perhaps such a perspective makes it easier for you to share something?
[c] http://www.colornote.com/download.html
I mostly use Colornote to keep track of ideas, such as app/application/project ideas along with a couple of bulletpoints (eg: Reinvent email: look into alternative client/server sync such as jmap; store email in normalized sql db?; document db?; store attachments based on content hash? (free de-dup); Store email body as same? (Good for multi-user server support for mailinglists ... etc))
It's absolutely the best book for anybody who keeps a blog or writes any sort of non-fiction. I try and re-read it once a year.
1. http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...
2. Watch the video at the end of this link: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/watch-me-write-this-arti... The take away is write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite some more.
3. Pay attention to the people who write well in your life. When you read an email that feels well written try to figure out why you like it. And use those elements in your future writings.
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Curious-Case-Misplaced-Modifier/dp...
Here's the amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
Just like coding, the "shortest" path to becoming a good writer is practice - practice everyday.
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...
It has plenty of examples and advice on various types of writing.
Beyond that, my advice is to simply read good texts. One starting point would be:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Essays-Charles-B-Shaw/dp/B000...
Or, for something newer:
http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html
While doing a quick search, I also came across this:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/05/20/need-examples-...
Which seems to be a great starting point.
As noted by others, this also discounts the time taken earlier, discussing the process to be documented, with your friend -- so I guesstimate "How I wrote a book in a short month" might be more accurate.
I really wonder if you didn't just demonstrate how to write a (good) blog post in a month -- I'll be very surprised if your book is better (sheds meaningfully more light on your process) than the blog post.
Either way, I respect you for doing it - and getting it done. It reminds me of someone (couldn't find the link now?) writing that their first book took one year to write, spending less than a month on the structure, and the rest on writing (and re-writing) -- and the second book took three months, two of which was spent on the structure/table of contents. Moral being that time spent on design/plan is returned many times when "fleshing out" the text.
Perhaps it was noted somewhere in "On Writing Well"[1] -- a book I highly recommend for anyone interested in doing any kind of writing.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060891548/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Edition/...
I agree with that statement. I also suggest the book, "On Writing Well." It helped me greatly with writing.
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...
On Writing Well - http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...
The Artful Edit - http://www.amazon.com/Artful-Edit-Practice-Editing-Yourself/...
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...
1. Apply the better writing advice to my everyday speech
2. Focus on writing down exactly what I wanted to say, and how I would have said it
School taught me to be super wordy and focus overly on the editing stage. Nowadays, I read everything I write out loud and if it sounds awkward (or not like me) then I just delete it and write it again from scratch. Oftentimes it helps to just close my eyes, say what I want to out loud, then write down what I just said.
It can turn out to be a little bit wordier, but it almost always ends up being easier to read :)
[0] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31060362 [2] https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...