You don't write to share more, you share to write more

At the Edges No.4

The art and science of generative writing

People’s assumptions of how writing works are completely backward. You don’t have an idea, make the klackity noise, and ship it. Writing and sharing are what create ideas. It’s not the end of a creative process. It’s just the start. I call this generative writing. I’m amazed at how much can come from writing when you put more intention and elbow grease into it.

The not-so-subtle art of giving a f*ck

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Earlier this year, I committed to putting more effort into increasing both the quantity and quality of my writing. There were several motivating factors:

I realized you should put effort into your passions.

I read Angela Duckworth’s Grit. My main takeaway: Interests are built, not found.

Interests become more fulfilling when you invest in them. This was counterintuitive to me. I always figured hobbies should be casual. I assumed they would stop being fun when they started getting hard. It turns out it’s the opposite. I’ve always said I enjoyed writing but never took it seriously. What happens when I do? Let’s find out!

I decided to write a book

For the better part of a year, I’ve had an idea for a book designed to help engineers increase their product thinking skills so they can deliver better outcomes and have more agency in their work. I hemmed and hawed on whether it was worth it to pursue this idea.

Then, when flying cross country ATL → SFO, I read Write Useful Books. With a new framework in hand, I decided to give it a shot.

Writing a book isn’t just writing a book, it’s writing the promotional copy, the drafts, the pitches, the supplementary marketing material. If I’m going to pull this off, I have to step up my game.

I became an engineering manager

At the start of 2025, I transitioned from software engineer to engineering manager. I view a large part of engineering management as content strategy — Agendas. Specs. Documentation. Slack Messages. Curating information from around the company and distilling it into a digestible format for my team.

Writing is an essential skill for effective management. When you work for a remote company, doubly so.

Examples of generative writing I’ve witnessed

Content blossoming into more content blossoming into even more

I shared a draft table of contents for the book idea with some friends (Great idea from Write Useful Books). I had a tertiary section about “improving your product intuition.” It was the one everyone was most interested in, so it became a sample chapter. Since publishing that, there are a couple of other sections that people found interesting. I can blow those out into entire chapters or larger sections².

Essay ideas while writing this very piece

Part of my writing practice is posting a short, informal post about whatever is on my mind weekly (At the Edges). When working on this update, I had two other ideas, then realized they probably have enough meat on the bone to be more fully fledged essays.³⁴

Writing creates opportunities

I can’t share too much publicly, but since sharing some sample work from the book, I’ve had some interesting conversations with people I wouldn’t have expected and some exciting opportunities in the “product thinking for engineers” space on the horizon. Those conversations pointed me toward the next part of the book project I should focus on.⁵

The combination of writing and sharing is powerful. I’m excited to see where this next part of the journey takes me.

I am also terrified. People have bought in and started supporting this “write a book” idea. Now I’m gonna have to sit down and actually finish this damn thing.

1. I despise the “vulgar self-help wave,” but I couldn’t help myself

2. How do engineers balance craftsmanship with outcomes? How can they ask better questions when collaborating cross-functionally?

3. What are the practical benefits of magical thinking?

4. How the “imagination premium” explains the seemingly irrational market behavior of meme stocks

5. In broad strokes, more on cross-functional collaboration: Articulating your value, executive translation, and how to ask better questions.