Last night I spent several hours watching Malcom Gladwell's and Roxane Gay's masterclass on writing. I had never heard of Roxanna Gay before but discovered that she was going to be one of the judges of the Medium Writing competition. 

So after completing Malcom's great class, I took Roxane's masterclass as well. I feel like I have learnt a lot from both these writers. More from Malcom for me since he is just more easy to listen to. He seems like a fascinating person regardless of his writing skills. 

Malcom made me feel like there is no point in sharing a story that has already been told. Just like David and Goliath. The only reason he wrote a book with that story is because he discovered that Goliath was blind. Most books don't share that fact so he wrote the book to point the non-obvious side of the story. He encourages doing something similar with whatever topic you select to write about. For that same reason, he encourages doing a lot of research. When someone reads your piece, they have to feel like they got something substantial out of reading it. These are great pointers that I didn't think about before but I am definitely doing it now. 

Roxane made me think about one specific point. She encouraged me to think about what story I am going to write about and why I am the most qualified person to share it. As I listened to her share about her reasons for the stories she selected, I got to thinking about what story I should share. 

I have a few stories that I suspect are good but coming back to why I should be the one to write this piece made me land on one specific story. I liked that I gravitated towards one story and know that I am qualified to share it. Now I feel like I can work on my first draft and get it out of me post haste.