This One Skill Separates Good Writers From Great Ones

My goal was to become a better writer.

So I kept a little notebook in my pocket, the cheap kind with thin paper, and I wrote in it whenever I wanted to capture a moment. eg. A kid sitting on the curb after school, tracing circles in the dirt with his shoe. Or, a man in a cafe was pushing the chairs back into place… even though he wasn’t the one who moved them.

Didn’t think much of this habit at first. Just lines, really. Half thoughts. Things I didn’t want to forget but didn’t know what to do with either. Filled a few pages, then more, started noticing how my thoughts had become a little clearer.

One night, I typed one of those notes up, just to see how it looked in another format, and posted it on Substack. Thought nothing of it. Closed the laptop. Went to bed. By morning, there were thousands of likes. By the end of the week, one of those notes had passed fifty thousand likes.

Another one followed.

Then another.

Strange how the smallest thi…