Published on August 2, 2025 6:51 PM GMT
Essays like Paul Graham's, Scott Alexander's, and Eliezer Yudkowsky's have influenced a generation of people in how they think about startups, ethics, science, and the world as a whole. Creating essays that good takes a lot of skill, practice, and talent, but it looks to me that a lot of people with talent aren't putting in the work and developing the skill, except in ways that are optimized to also be social media strategies.
To fix this problem, I am running the Inkhaven Residency. The idea is to gather a bunch of promising writers to invest in the art and craft of blogging, through a shared commitment to each publish a blogpost every day for the month of November.
Why a daily writing structure? Well, it's partly a reaction to other fellowships I've seen. I've seen month-long or years-long events with exceedingly little public output, where the people would've contributed far more to humanity's understanding if they simply blogged regularly about their ideas. I also believe regularly shipping is healthy: it gets you in touch with all parts of the process, and avoids you self-deceiving about how good your output would be if you were to ship.
The idea came to us partly by comparison to NaNoWriMo, and a draft name for this residency was NaBloWriMo. 30 blogposts in 30 days is very schelling, and the success/fail criteria are clear.
To be clear, I don't expect that every day every writer will write a great post. Slate Star Codex had over 1,500 posts, and not all of them were Meditations on Moloch. I think the daily commitment is partly a way to ensure writing is a focus of your life, and some people should often write a fast blogpost and then spend more of their time redrafting more ambitious essays for other days. Other people have built up a lot of ideas over time, or have developed a unique perspective they've not written up, and so have the potential to make every daily post great. There are many ways to relate to the daily posting schedule.
I've also been thinking about what events I want to go to. Rather than a brief interlude or occasional habit, I want to make a major investment that I think has a good chance of changing the course of my writing career, and I want to be surrounded by other people taking it as seriously as I am. A month seems like the sweet spot for this.
Finally, I suspect that a lot of promising writers want an environment like this, and if so I think one of the most valuable aspects of this will be the opportunity to be surrounded by some of the best writers of the next generation of internet essayists and bloggers, all fully focused on honing and sharing their craft.
So I am excited to spend a month running a Residency focused on the art and craft of blogging.
If you'd like to join me, or learn more, go to www.inkhaven.blog.
LW FAQ
I comment/post on LessWrong. Should I apply?
I think many LessWrong commenters and/or posters have the potential to create truly great blogs, and I wish more of you would do so!
If you've written posts or comments with strong positive responses before (as a very rough heuristic, a few comments with 50+ karma, or a post or two with 100+ karma) I think that's a good sign about your ability to do that many more times and do it better. I'd encourage whether the Inkhaven Residency is something you'd like to do this November, and if plausibly yes, then to apply!
Are Residents expected to post on LessWrong?
No.
Partly because I am not quite sure the site is ready for an additional 30 posts each day!
But mostly because, for many people, it will be a time to explore many different styles and subjects of their writing, many of which will not be a good fit for LessWrong.
Nonetheless I would encourage people to try writing posts that are received well on LessWrong (perhaps sometimes as an extended Quick Take), as there is a smart audience with a strong epistemic culture here, and I think for many people it's the best places on the internet to get feedback on their ideas.
Overall, I don't expect most essays from Inkhaven Residents to be posted on LessWrong.
I have more questions!
See if it's answered in the much more thorough FAQ on the website: inkhaven.blog
Else ask a comment here or in intercom :)
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