Vanessa Van Edwards separates research from writing: research is gathering facts, writing is serving readers. Good nonfiction requires killing unnecessary details, simplifying prose until it flows like water, and ruthless editing to make ideas easy to understand.
Researching is not writing, and it is hard to flip back and forth between the two. Research is not putting words on page. The act of writing, it's actually an act of service for someone else. That's how I think of my writing, is am I putting words on page for someone else as an act of service? Because if I just wanted to write for me, I could journal all day long. It would only make me laugh, wouldn't be helpful to anyone else. If I'm going to write for someone else, I have to kill my darlings. Even though I love this phrase, will everyone else? I have to gut check and self-check. I have to fact-check. And then it has to go through that very rigorous process of, is this like water. When I write nonfiction, I want people to feel like it's so easy to consume, it's like drinking a big glass of water. And so if a concept is sticky or complicated or overly wordy, or I added in a citation that I think is fabulous but no one else will, it's got to go. So all that to say, yes,
