How I Write?
Posted on: March 12, 2026
By: Bertrand Russell
I cannot pretend to know how writing ought to be done, or what a wise critic would advise me to do with a view to improving my own writing.
The most that I can do is to relate some things about my own attempts.
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Until I was twenty-one, I wished to write more or less in the style of John Stuart Mill. I liked the structure of his sentences and his manner of developing a subject.
I had, however, already a different ideal, derived, I suppose, from mathematics.
I wished to say everything in the smallest number of words in which it could be said clearly.
Perhaps, I thought, one should imitate Baedeker rather than any more literary model.
I would spend hours trying to find the shortest way of saying
And why do I write?
Why do I write? Why do I commit to something daily?
There is no finish line, no grand achievement waiting at the end. But here I am, showing up, writing, creating, learning.
It is not about reaching a certain number of days or proving something to anyone.
It is about sending a signal to myself—a commitment, a promise that I will continue.
I choose discipline, and I train myself for it every single day.
Adonis Diaries 
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