The essence of writing

     I've written quite a bit lately, and through this process, I've gained many insights into writing. Today, I'd like to summarize them:

    The essence of writing is actually quite simple. In my view, it boils down to a few words:

    1. Environment.

    The environment, in my opinion, includes two parts: the external environment and the internal environment. For the external environment, my personal habit is that it must be quiet. After all, only under quiet conditions can one begin to conceive ideas. As for the quietest place, my first choice is, of course, the library. For the internal environment, this mainly refers to one's state of mind. The core of this state of mind is nothing more than tranquility. My personal habit is that only when the mind is calm can one begin to conceive ideas.

    2. Conception.

    Conception, as the name suggests, is your consideration of the article. In fact, the flow of ideas is built upon the foundation of the environment. Only with a good environment is it possible to conceive ideas. Furthermore, I want to emphasize here that the flow of ideas must be complete. Never write things down piecemeal, like squeezing toothpaste. Some might say, "I didn't have a complete flow of ideas at the time." That's okay. An incomplete flow of ideas is not a problem; you can write down what you've already considered. However, I want to clarify one point here: your considerations must be complete. Once, I read a book called *The Thirty-Six Stratagems*, which included a stratagem called "Taking Advantage of a Fire to Rob." After reading it, I immediately thought of the story of Luo Cheng and Zhu Wudeng's battle in a storytelling performance. I then noted the connection between "Taking Advantage of a Fire to Rob" and Luo Cheng. The connection was: Luo Cheng cleverly exploited the enemy's desire to take advantage of the chaos and thus achieved victory.

    3. Conciseness.

    Here, conciseness mainly refers to language in writing. To explain conciseness, let me use a phrase from my teacher: use only a few words or sentences to clearly express what you want to say; the fewer words, the better. Your main point should only occupy a few sentences in the entire article; the most important thing is to use examples to prove your point. Let me give you another example of my consideration of "Taking Advantage of a Fire to Rob." In my article, my main point was only one sentence: Luo Cheng cleverly exploited the opponent's desire to take advantage of his misfortune and thus achieved victory by taking advantage of the opponent's vulnerability. This sentence was my main point. In reality, beyond this sentence, I also needed to consider how Luo Cheng specifically operated. These things make up 80% of my articles.

    4. Source Material:

    Regarding source material, I mainly want to talk about two points:

    First, you should be able to draw material from small things. For example, a classmate of mine went to a job fair and came back looking dejected, telling me, "What bad luck! I went to a job fair, submitted countless resumes, and got nowhere. To put it bluntly, I was just filling in for others." After he told me this, I comforted him, and his story also gave me some inspiration. Interview failure? Why did he fail? Based on his experience and my recent online research, combined with stories from traditional storytelling, I came up with the lesson in this story: the setbacks in job hunting.

    Second, besides drawing material from small things, another important point is that you should draw material from things that seem unrelated to your writing content. I remember I once wrote a piece about the secrets to success in fishing. Fishing and success seem unrelated on the surface, but through my elaboration, I cleverly found similarities between them and used them to connect two seemingly unrelated things. This makes the article interesting. This point is crucial in writing.

    5. Entry Point

    Regarding entry points, I personally emphasize two words: uniqueness. For uniqueness, I mainly write about developing new perspectives from traditional ideas. "

    When God closes a door, he opens a window." Everyone knows this saying, and countless people have interpreted it, but the key to writing is simply never giving up and always moving forward. However, this saying takes on a new meaning in my hands. It's true that God opens a window, but if we interpret this window as opportunity, have you ever considered the vitality of opportunity? In other words, an opportunity is there; when should you seize it, and when should you let it go? When you consider the vitality of opportunity, the article becomes much more interesting.

    Regarding the selection of materials and entry points, the most important point is the word "uniqueness." The uniqueness here boils down to one word: eccentric. To illustrate this eccentricity, I'd like to use a saying from traditional storytelling: "A book with a thousand different perspectives gets no reader, but a book with a thousand different perspectives by one author is endlessly fascinating."

    I've outlined five points above. These five points may seem unrelated on the surface, but they are actually interconnected. Environment is the foundation of writing; only with a favorable environment can the subsequent work proceed. Regarding conception, what I've described on the surface is simply considering the completeness of the article, but this actually includes the issues of material selection and entry point. Only by considering both of these can one succeed. In the actual writing process, the most fundamental point is conciseness. As my teacher said, you should use a few sentences to explain your point of view, and then use the materials you've found and a unique entry point to prove it. These five points are interconnected; they are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. You must understand and flexibly apply them.

    Furthermore, I want to emphasize how to achieve a unique entry point. Regarding this question, I'd like to quote my teacher: "Remember, Zhou Kai, you must be able to see what others cannot see." Seeing what others cannot see—these few words alone are enough to explain the issue. Many things are presented here, seemingly insignificant on the surface, but if you examine them carefully, the content becomes quite different. For example, the idiom "怀才不遇" (huái cái bù yù, meaning "talented but unrecognized") contains new meaning. "怀才不遇" mainly boils down to two words: "才" (cái) and "遇" (yù). "才" I interpret as ability or talent. "遇" primarily refers to opportunity. After extensively examining examples of successful people, I suddenly realized that "才" here includes not only traditional Chinese talent but also social experience. For someone who possesses both talent and social experience and can seize opportunities, the concept of "怀才不遇" (huái cái bù yù, meaning "talented but unrecognized") is practically nonexistent. Therefore, I ultimately found another way to express "怀才不遇": "怀才不欲" (huái cái bù yù, meaning "talented but not desirous").