Garrett Kincaid

There is no best way to go, but there is a worst way: to follow.

@david_perell @david_perell, could you please share the output that made you think this? Was it a sentence or a paragraph or an entire essay? It’d be helpful to see what you consider to be the best AI writing.

I spent 5 years teaching writing, and ChatGPT's gotten to the point where, after just a few prompts, the output is better than 75% of my writing students would've ever been able to achieve on their own, with a day's worth of work.

@kadavy Haha I’m with you. Editing always adds value.

@GarrettKincaid Reading it as value is accurate. I guess I’m thinking in terms of editing something very long. Top of mind for me as I’m editing a book 😉

The approximate value generated per-minute, over time, by task performed. Accurate?

@kadavy Oh I was reading this as “value added to the project per minute.” I can also edit for several hours, but edit the same thing for long enough, with enough passes, and you have diminishing marginal returns on the quality of the thing. Value is never zero but definitely diminishes.

@GarrettKincaid Funny, I feel like it’s pretty steady. I can edit and pick up edits for several hours without wearing out.

@super_ I could really use some buttons. How soon?

Guess what's coming to Super very soon 👀

@kadavy Yes, it’s also a more condensed version of the Gospels, b/c it pulls from all four (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) to make one A–Z story. He physically cut out and edited together the verses with Greek, Latin, French, and English side by side, to easily refer to the etymology.

@kadavy There’s definitely a moral philosophy in the teachings and proverbs of the Gospels, and that’s what Jefferson wanted to highlight. So, he cut out all the miracles and metaphysics and kept the ethics. It starts at Jesus’s birth and ends at his death (before the resurrection).

Finally have made some progress reading the Bible after many false starts. Here's the secret: Skip right to an interesting section. Genesis sucks. Ecclesiastes much better and only 5k words. Matthew and Mark also manageable starting points.

@david_perell I’m so grateful to have started my career at Write of Passage. I’ve learned so much and have loved my work. Thank you, David. Here’s to delivering one more exceptional cohort!

Okay, it's time to get a little personal. I have an update to share about my company, Write of Passage. We're going to shut down at the end of the year, and the next cohort will be our last. This has not been an easy decision, but it’s necessary. And I want to explain what happened, especially for our alumni. Our company, course, and community are alive and radiant. We have alumni who’ve poured their hearts into this community and built intimate friendships, we have a team who treats their work as soulcraft, and we have a culture of craftsmanship that is rare. That’s why this decision is so devastating. I started Write of Passage to take the loneliness out of writing. The vision was to bring life to writing education. That meant building a community of people to support each other and a curriculum that feels nothing like your 5th-grade English class. Those things I envisioned, but I never expected to attract so many people who are off the charts in curiosity and enthusiasm. They’re the ones who’ve given Write of Passage so much life. At the level of our mission, Write of Passage has been an astounding success. We’ve pushed the limits on what an online course can be with hyper-energetic Zoom sessions and a talented fleet of mentors and editors. We attracted 2,000+ students from 72 countries, reached a Net Promoter Score of 75 (higher than Apple), and we have alumni who went from publishing their first article in the course to publishing books or growing to 100,000+ subscribers. After a recent cohort, when we asked students about their experience, the phrase “life-changing” showed up 39 times. If you had told me all that without showing me the finances, I would have assumed that Write of Passage was growing fast and swimming in revenue, but that hasn't happened. We’ve built something worth celebrating in every way, except for the economics of the business. The first three years were roaring, but the past two have been grueling. Growth has been particularly difficult and I’ve been feeling constrained by the bi-annual cohort model itself. You need more than a great product to make a business work, and the main thing we were missing was a dependable flow of new students. I’m eager to prioritize creative work again too. I originally started Write of Passage to subsidize my creative work but the demands of running the company took me away from that. There are people who can do high-quality writing while running a company, but I’m not one of them. I think I can have a bigger impact doing something else, and so, the company has run its course. Specifically, I’m eager to double-down on How I Write and prioritize my own writing again. And who knows? Maybe it’s time to write a book. But like I said, we’re not done yet! Write of Passage will have its grand finale. The final Write of Passage cohort will run from October 7th – November 13th, and enrollment is now open. We’re pulling out the stops to make this cohort the biggest and best yet. For one, we’re making it more accessible by lowering the price for people who enroll early, and we’re expanding the scholarship pool. So, if you’ve ever wanted to experience the magic of Write of Passage, this is your last chance. To the Write of Passage community: Thank you for the heart you’ve brought to every cohort. From Feedback Gyms to Live Sessions, the one thing I can always count on is that you’ll show up with passion and dedication (even if y’all go a little crazy in the Zoom chat). Happy writing, — David Perell

@charliedbecker @p_millerd Thank you, Charlie! Paul, I’d love to work with you. Copy editing is more like a pastime for me (or an involuntary tick). I re-punctuate every ad I see on public transit. It just comes naturally. Feel free to DM me about the project you’re working on.

@p_millerd @GarrettKincaid

does anyone have a good copy editor they like using?

@markmanson I’d love to see one of these tear-downs about the “half of marriages end in divorce” stat that we all have stuck in our heads. Until your recent podcast ep., I didn’t know that divorce rates have been below 50% for decades.

This week's edition of "bad charts shared on the internet." Are all the tech jobs really leaving California? No. They're not. Even if the data is correct, this chart is garbage. See below: 🧵

@TaiWhyte Follow to learn, but don’t follow as a way of life, deferring to those “ahead” of you because it’s comfortable and reassuring. Find your own way, and don’t worry about whether you have followers. Lear from others. Lead yourself.

@GarrettKincaid There is a time and place to follow. Does a leader without followers warrant the designation?

There is no best way to go, but there is a worst way: to follow.

@monstersandmen I’ve been a fan of yours since MHIIA, and I got to see you play at Radio City in 2019. I’ll never forget @hiinanna sitting and singing “Waiting For The Snow.” Thank you for making TÍU. It’s a beautiful ode to Iceland, and, through it, I got to know each band member better.

Our TÍU mini documentary premiered last week, thank you everyone for joining us for the premiere and afterparty. We’re so happy that it’s now out for everyone to see. You can now watch it online 🫶 youtube.com/watch?v=2gFSr2…

@_stevenfoster I’m agreeing with you about the simple life and disagreeing that we go to cities for simplicity. I think we go to them for convenience and justify the work-dominated weeks by the conveniences that the city provides. I would call it convenience at the cost of simplicity.

@GarrettKincaid Is it ultimate convenience if you have to trade 40+ hours a week for it? Seems inconvenient.

If we went to cities for simplicity, then why do they call this the simple life?

These were my take-aways from today’s issue or Charlotte’s Stretch Letter: stretch-letter.com/p/dopamine-wil…

Many sources of dopamine promise happiness but deliver stress and regret. Think of any unhealthy craving. But cutting out those cravings isn’t a “dopamine detox.” It’s more like “dopamine fasting,” because the craving remains — you have just decided not to act on it.

Some wisdom from @chargrysolle on willpower: Dopamine is not a happiness-hormone. It’s a desire-hormone. Dopamine released when we expect happiness, not when we obtain it. Your brain promises happiness to motivate you to do something, but there’s no guarantee of happiness.

My little-league baseball coach repeated this maxim every practice and printed it on t-shirts: Feedback is a gift. It might be the greatest lesson I learned from playing sports. The more receptive you are to feedback, the more you'll learn and the better you'll perform.

@leohepis @grace_ssmith I hear your point, but I personally don’t acknowledge the comma splice as valid in any context. Haha it made me cringe to write that sentence. I’d say the only acceptable use of the comma splice is as an example of a mechanical error. BTW, nice use of the semicolon

@GarrettKincaid @grace_ssmith Does not make me cringe. It carries the air of a casual warm chat; it does not distance the way formal speak does. But acknowledging the comma splice as valid in some contexts does not diminish the power of the semicolon when comparing and contrasting 😎

Don’t use semicolons, they’re confusing. If you think you might need a semicolon, just use a comma. No one cares about comma splices. And no one knows what a semicolon means. So, just use a comma instead of a semicolon, no one will notice, I promise.