I was fortunate enough that my dad took us on trips abroad and other excursions. He would always make my sister and I write our experiences down, in 1000, 2000 and 3000 words (it got bigger as we grew older).

The writing habit

We would get a F4 pad, and start doodling everything we could remember, and add sketches and stuff. At first, it was just writing down our thoughts - little details we could remember about the trip. I would remember as a kid, I would start off like how children’s stories go - a brief introduction about where we went, and the juicy details in between, ending off with a nice summary about going back again (or not).

It helped me appreciate the habit of writing, and everything on paper pretty much stays the way it is - it’s like a photograph, a snapshot of your mind at that point in time.

Conversations with myself

I kept a journal in high school, and I wrote about all kinds of stuff. At the time, I was writing out my thoughts and feelings, and that helped me to develop a conversational style. I wrote more than I read.

Conversations with others

I stopped writing when I went to college, but I did write a lot of emails to my then-girlfriend over long distances. I don’t know if that counts, but I think that helped me understand a part of writing for relationship’s sake. It was hard to manage the relationship over so many thousand miles (we were at opposite ends of the world), and emails and phone calls helped. She didn’t seem to like IMs very much.

Critical thinking

I did appreciate English 102 and Lit for the formal ways of crafting a position in an argument, rebuttals and the critical thinking behind it. But I learnt most from reading excellent journalistic material during the last 7 years of my working life - from technical tutorials, gadget reviews, news reports - especially when I was looking hard for specific answers. I even learnt from forums. I also learnt from writing technical documents like requirements specifications, how-tos, user manuals, and the like.

Blogs

I started blogging in 2004, continuing where I left off in my journals. I wrote about all sorts of things, and avoided serious stuff for the most part. I only really started writing critically when I asked my boss if it would be good to have a blog about innovation and the stuff we’re doing in the office. When he let me, I started the innovation blog.

So, that’s when I started writing commentaries and opinions based on stuff I was reading around innovation topics, Web 2.0, and career articles from Penelope Trunk. No one read the innovation blog, so I let it die a natural death, and kickstarted leapwalking.

Writing forces me to think critically. It helps put things in the right perspective, especially when I’m confused or depressed and have no one to talk to. I’m glad that I have an avenue here with the blog, and I think most blogs are a lot like that.

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