I’m offering writing coaching for self-expression

I help writers and aspiring writers to make their creative process more of what they want it to be.

1. Maybe you’ve already established an online presence. You published a few pieces, but there is a gap between the person you are and the writing on the page. The idea in your head is lively and fun, but you feel like the writing is lacking that. Perhaps you’d want to publish more consistently, but you are frequently dealing with creative blocks.

2. Or maybe you want to learn how to write. You have things to say but you don’t know where to start. Perhaps you’ve managed to start a bunch of pieces, but now you have a pile of unfinished drafts and you cringe at the idea of ever publishing them.

If this sounds familiar, I can help.

I now publish long essays on this blog. They are read by hundreds, thousands and occasionally tens of thousands of people.

But it hasn’t always been this way. I wasn’t born with a special writing talent. I used to struggle to compose a single tweet, let alone write a paragraph. If I had to document my code (I worked as a Software Engineer), I’d be fine. But god forbid I’d have to put something emotionally vulnerable on page.

My writing process was kickstarted by Sasha Chapin’s writing coaching (who is no longer doing it). I then challenged myself to write 100 things (which took a couple of years). In November I completed Inkhaven, a program for writers where you have to publish a blog post daily for 30 days or they kick you out of the program (my final post on what I learned).

Over time, writing stopped feeling like a mysterious talent other people had and started becoming a set of skills I could practice: saying what I actually mean, noticing what’s fun to write about, being vulnerable on the page, cutting out hedging and evasiveness, and developing the courage to finally hit “publish”.

Along the way, people started subscribing to my blogs and twitter. I started reliably receiving compliments on my writing from friends and strangers. Ex-colleagues I’d lost touch with started reaching out to get coffee. I also became way less neurotic about life and it has gotten more interesting.

I don’t think I can help a professional journalist win the next Pulitzer. But I am well-suited to helping people who are where I used to be: full of ideas, overly cerebral, scared of sounding stupid, and struggling to express what they actually mean.

My colleagues at work ask me for feedback on their writing. People at my writing club events in London (1, 2, 3, 4) seek my advice. So I’m making it official: I’m offering writing coaching online.

I don’t use a fixed curriculum. We’ll start with your actual writing life: what you want to write, what you’ve already tried, and where the work feels stuck. Then we’ll adapt based on what actually happens.

During the sessions, I’ll be providing high-level advice and feedback. Between sessions we’ll work async: I’ll read your updated drafts, help you edit them and answer your questions.

I can help you with:

1. figuring out topics to write about;

2. telling whether an idea is stupid or secretly good;

3. making conceptual writing emotionally alive;

4. crafting sentences, structuring sections, figuring out endings, editing & titling your posts;

5. publishing online, promoting your writing;

6. establishing a consistent practice, creative project management;

7. dealing with creative blocks / performance anxiety / publishing cringe;

Sometimes the problem is the draft. Sometimes the problem is your relationship to the draft. I’m interested in both.

I do stand-up comedy (92 performances, for an example check this video of me making 450 people laugh). In addition to that, I’ve also taken 7 improv comedy/theater courses and 3 clown courses.

Most writers don’t get realtime fast-paced feedback for their art in front of an audience — I do, and I learned a bunch of insights from comedy writing that apply to writing in general.

Performing on stage has made me much more sensitive to rhythm, surprise, tension, status, and the difference between technically correct language and language that causes an emotional impact in your audience.

If you read my work and think “I’d like my writing to become more like this in some way,” that’s a good sign. If you just go “meh”, probably not — you probably need some other set of skills, and I can’t teach what I don’t practice.

What writing to read? I’d recommend checking out these five pieces.

1. My viral piece of writing advice: Writing Hack: Write It Just Like That.

2. A cringe personal story, How I Lost My Backpack with Passports and Laptop.

3. A fun whimsical post on comedy & communication in general, Prosocial mischief: gently fucking with social scripts via improv.

4. A long researched effortpost that helped a non-profit raise an extra $1,700 in donations, Near-Instantly Aborting the Worst Pain Imaginable with Psychedelics.

5. My guest post on Scott Alexander’s blog about an EEG study replication, Never Cross a River Four Feet Deep on Average

I charge $175/hour. Sessions can be one-off, but they would be most useful if we work together over multiple sessions. Problems tend to unfold over time: drafts evolve, blocks mutate, and the real problem is not always the one that appears first.

Async work between sessions carries no additional charge. It’s not unlimited, but you can expect reasonable amounts of it — we’ll discuss the exact arrangement.

If this sounds like a fit, book a free call — I’d love to talk.

If you’re curious but unsure, I invite you to book a call anyway. Don’t worry about wasting my time — I like talking to people about their writing, and these calls help me understand what people are generally looking for. You can think of it as helping me do market research.

And feel free to email me with any questions.