5 Books That Helped Me Start (And Continue) Writing Publicly

They Might Help You Too

Frey

Jun 21, 2025

These five books didn’t just motivate me — they reshaped how I think about writing. Each one met me exactly where I was, and gave me the mindset shift I didn’t know I needed:

📜 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Taught me the habit of writing

📘 Show Your Work by Austin Kleon + 🧠 Pragmatic Thinking & Learning by Andy Hunt
Together, these showed me the power of sharing in-progress thoughts.
Writing publicly wasn’t just about “putting myself out there”

It was a system to think better, remember more, and generate deeper insights.
When I engaged with ideas openly, my brain responded with more clarity, creativity, and momentum.

📕 The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
Freed me from the fear of judgment and confront my own fears. I stopped writing to impress and started writing to express, and that helped me keep going.

🖋️ The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole
Pushed me to treat writing as a real craft and system. It helped me move past “beginner” goals and start taking my work and myself seriously.

Each book was a turning point.
Maybe they’ll be one for you too.

Sometimes it’s not more strategy we need, it’s perspective.
These five books didn’t just give me motivation.
They gave me the mental shifts that made my writing journey possible, and I hope they’ll do the same for you.

I’ve only shared snippets of the ideas that helped me most, but if you haven’t read these yet and you have the time, I highly recommend picking them up. They’re not just useful, they’re genuinely good reads.

Here’s what they taught me and why they might help you too:

1. What Got Me Into Writing

📜 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius — And the Mindset That Brought Me Here

Before I ever published anything online, I had already been writing, privately, for five years (of course, I skipped a day or two or even a week or two).

One page a day. Sometimes just a sentence. Not for performance. Not for praise. Just to process.

I followed the method behind Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. His writings weren’t meant for an audience they were personal notes, reminders to himself about how to live, think, endure, and reflect.

That approach helped me in three big ways:

I became good at expressing and examining my thoughts through words.
The habit of writing got deeply instilled in me after years of practice.
And it introduced me to writing as something enjoyable, lighter, not heavy.

But this wasn’t enough to get me to put my writings out in public. I had the habit. I know I had some things to say, and I even enjoyed the process.

But sharing? Publicly? That felt like an entirely different thing.

It wasn’t until later that a few key mindset shifts happened. Took me 4 years to finally get over that stage and finally gather the courage to hit publish.

2. What Got Me to Share

🧠 Pragmatic Thinking & Learning by Andy Hunt

This book taught me how the brain responds to behavior, and it completely changed my approach to writing.

Your Brain Tags Ideas Based on Your Actions

Your brain watches what you do to decide what matters.
Ignore your ideas? Your brain stops surfacing them.
Capture and act on them? You’ll get more.

That is why:

Clarity and creativity don’t come before you write; they come because you write.

Don’t wait to begin.

Don’t waste your Ideas,

Don’t let them disappear into the noise.

Create from them, and watch as they evolve into their final form.

But writing privately won’t be able to help me with this enough.

To let my ideas take their form, I need feedback, and the fastest way to get this feedback is to put it on the internet. Moreover, I needed to take my ideas more seriously, to feel the pressure that comes with knowing people will see them.

Hence, the solution I found was to publish.

I started writing here to train my brain to take my ideas seriously.

I treated every passing thought, insight, or question as valuable.
And the more I engaged, the more ideas showed up.

Writing Is a Way to Think

Writing isn’t just for sharing, it’s for figuring things out.

When I felt stuck, I didn’t wait to feel smarter.
I wrote through the mess and often found my way forward in the act of writing itself.

📘 Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

This book had been sitting on my reading list for four years. When I finally read it, I wished I’d opened it on Day 1.

The Process Matters More Than We Realize

“If your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.” - Kleon

That quote really left an impression on me. And not just in the sense of publishing your final output. What struck me more was the value of making your process visible.

I realized that the best parts of my thinking weren’t even in the finished productthey lived in the steps I took to get there. The mental paths. The questions. The shifts in direction. The messy middle.

But those parts? They were disappearing.

Not because they weren’t useful, but because they were never turned into anything permanent. They passed by, unnoticed, undocumented, and eventually forgotten.

Sure, the results were nice. And yes, they’re more polished, more interesting, more “post-worthy.” That’s what most people tend to share online: the results. The success. The wins. The shiny, finished thing.

We’ve become so drawn to this highlight-reel culture. Everyone posting what they got, what they did, what looks good. New projects. New cities. New wins.

But not enough people share how they got there.

And that’s what I wanted to do.

Sharing my work publicly became more than just a publishing act; it became a way to honor the invisible effort. The quiet figuring-things-out. The learning. The parts that don’t go viral, but matter just as much. Maybe more.

That shift helped me see writing not just as a craft to refine, but as a breadcrumb trail. One that others could follow. One I could come back to when I needed to remember how I got through it the first time.

Over time, I built a library. One that didn’t just show my output, but reflected everything I’ve done so far, my mistakes, my wins, how I started, how I kept going.

And now I’m seeing something even more meaningful:
My work isn’t just valuable to me anymore.
It’s becoming useful to others who want to walk a similar path.

By sharing what I’ve learned, I can help someone skip the part where they struggle alone.
Your work becomes more valuable when it's shared.

You Don’t Need to Be a Genius, Just Generous

Another shift was realizing I didn’t need to be the expert.
It permitted me to publish while I was still figuring things out.

This took a lot of pressure off my shoulders, as someone who started as a complete beginner.
Unfamiliar with the space.
No network, no mentor, no connections. No other platforms. Nothing.
Maybe someone like you, reading this now.

But somehow, I got here.
And that tells me: generosity pays off.
It’s given me more than I ever thought I could accomplish.

3. What Got Me to Push Through

📘 The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga

This book didn’t just help me write. It helped me keep writing even when doubt crept in.

The Separation of Tasks

This idea freed me:

My task is to write truthfully and clearly.
The reader’s task is to decide how they feel about it.

Once I internalized that, I stopped trying to people-please through every sentence.

If someone thought my work was bad? Their task is to say so.

My task is to evaluate:
Are they right?
If yes, I adjust.
If not, I move on.

The Gap of Possibility

This is where we hide:

“I could write… I might start… I probably have something to say…”

But we don’t act. Because as long as we don’t try, we can’t fail.

This book made me realize: staying in the gap is a choice, a self-protective one.
And it comes at a cost: nothing real gets built..

This part has been especially helpful in helping me break free from the bottleneck of self-sustenance, something I talked about in this article.

I used to tell myself all kinds of things just to avoid monetizing:

“Maybe I’m just overestimating myself.”
“Why would anyone pay for my work?”
“It’s not even that good.”
“I probably need to work a little longer before I can charge.”

I believed those thoughts even though, deep down, I knew they weren’t true.

Readers have sent me money through donations.
People keep commenting, messaging, and telling me how my work has helped them.
But I ignored all of it because staying in the gap felt safer.

4. What Got Me to Take It Seriously

🖋️ The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole

Treating writing as a habit helped me stay consistent. But this book made me realize that, at some point, I’d have to confront the fact that my goals needed to shift.

I’ve always intended to grow my audience. That goal was clear from the beginning.

But I also knew that if I became too fixated on growth too early, I’d end up burnt out or discouraged. So I set what I call healthy beginner goals, which I talked about in this article.

Goals like: show up every week, experiment with formats, and figure out what kind of writing feels natural to me.

That indeed worked.

But as time went on, those goals had to evolve. I needed to level up because if I stayed too long in beginner mode, writing would lose its spark. No new challenges. No thrill. Just the same loop on repeat. It would feel flat, and I’d start to lose the flow that made it enjoyable in the first place. Maybe it could even cause me to get bored and stop altogether.

I needed to up the whole game. To keep improving. To keep enjoying.
To treat writing as a real craft, something I was building.

This book gave me the final push to treat writing as a real craft, not just a personal habit or an easy trap to fall into when we're afraid to confront new goals and the possibility of failure.

Writing Is a Craft and a System

Taking it more seriously, and changing my goal as I go, added just the right amount of pressure to polish my words, to finish what I started, to think more clearly.

That pressure made me better.

That’s all for today! I appreciate you so much for reading up until here! 😊 If you think this article could help someone, feel free to share it or like it, it helps expand its reach to help others as well. 💌

Frey.

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Up Next: 5 Books That Helped Me Start (And Continue) Writing Publicly

Where I share the books that helped me build the habit of writing, share my work publicly, push through doubt and criticism, and, most importantly, take my writing seriously. Not just as a habit, but as a craft.

Since I missed last Tuesday’s publishing schedule (life be life-ing 😅), I’ll be making up for it this week and publishing on Saturday instead!

Appreciate you for being here thank you so much for reading💛

See you there!

HAPPY WRITING!😊