Dear reader,
Last night, after a few positive distractions. I stumbled onto this website. The website was an advertisement for a 200 dollar a year newsletter. I thought to myself, what could be so valuable about a newsletter.
As maybe some readers know, I’ve been on a quest to master written communication. I’m not really good at it. This newsletter was able to, with mere words, creep in my scarce mindset to make me believe I needed a 200 dollar newsletter. What would I get? The promise to master written communication. How? By copying their newsletter.
I researched this method, called “copywork”. The idea is that if you rewrite and analyse carefully legendary written texts, you will build comparable skills as the writers.
And so I researched and chatGPT suggested I should rewrite the Boron letters. So I did (the first one). Imagine how that feels, to copy an already written letter for 2 hours by hand, in 2026. But something extraordinary happened. I not only followed and rewrote the words, but I followed its advice.
You see, the Boron letters were written by Gary Halbert, who was a genius copywriter and, as I would put it, salesman. He was able to persuade me to do what he calls road-work, meaning that the next day, I woke up at 6 in the morning, before the sunrise, to walk to Marina Green in San Francisco.
It taught me something about this lost art of copying. This idea that we can displace ourselves into the shoes of another, and gain their powers for a bit of time, to think how they thought.
I would highly encourage, to anyone who reads this, to bring this practice to your own lives, copy your favorite passages from your favorite authors, copy chess moves from the grand players. Your mind will activate the pathways they used and, you will find yourself influenced with positivity.
I’m not sure whether I will keep the habit of the 6 AM walk, but I will continue copyworking my way to becoming a better writer myself and, I hope that by reading through this, I’ve inspired you try try it as well, even if it is just to cherish someone you look up to.
Sincerely,
Thomas Verlinden
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