Bloodletting used to be standard medical practice. Today, bloodletting might sound stupid or even barbaric, but way back when, it really seems to have helped people.
Here’s a passage about an army captain who experienced some insult that made him so furious that his friends couldn’t make sense of what he was saying:
“The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary to bleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy arm and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him.”
That passage is from War and Peace, by Russian count Leo Tolstoy.
Between 1902 and 1906, Tolstoy was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times but never won once.
Somebody who did win the Nobel Prize is American journalist Ernest Hemingway.
Hemingway wrote many things, but he never wrote the following passage, which is often attributed to him:
“It is easy to write. Just sit in front of your typewriter, open a vein, and bleed.”
That quote is probably attributed to Hemingway so often because he was famous and because in the end he killed himself. Hemingway’s life and death go well with the sentiment that writing is hard, draining, even destructive to the writer.
But I would like to give you that other perspective on that passage, the medical bloodletting perspective.
Each day, before I write my daily email, I’m filled with a mess of ideas, emotions, reactions, and confused plans. I’m also restless because I feel I haven’t accomplished the one thing I set myself as a task for absolutely every day.
After I write my daily email, I function more normally. People can understand me better if I talk, I can make some kind of plans about the future, and I feel the satisfaction of having accomplished something concrete that day.
In other words, daily emailing has the benefits of medical bloodletting, or maybe journaling.
Except daily emailing also has the added benefits of building up an audience… producing content that can be repurposed for books, podcasts appearances, or courses… and of course, driving readers to sales or other types of actions.
Speaking of which:
In a few days’ time, I will host a free training.
The training will cover how I write and profit from this newsletter that you are reading now.
It will happen on Monday January 22, 2024 at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. But you will have to be signed up to my list first. Click here to do so.