Writing
The Writing Desk
Where the notes become sentences. Nicole Junkermann keeps the writing desk for the slow work of turning a rough idea into something clear.
Back to the journal
Good writing is mostly the patience to cut what is not needed.
A blank page is friendlier than it looks. The work here is unglamorous and steady: write a first version without judging it, leave it for a while, then return to take out the words that were only getting in the way. Clarity tends to arrive on the second or third pass, not the first.
Short sentences carry more than long ones. Plain words usually beat clever ones. A paragraph that says one thing well is worth three that say several things vaguely. These are not rules so much as gentle reminders, repeated as often as they are forgotten.
Letters, notes and longer pieces all start the same way, with a single honest sentence. The rest is simply the willingness to keep going and then to trim.
Revision
Write, rest, then trim
The most useful tool on this desk is time. A piece left overnight reads differently in the morning, and the sentences that seemed essential at midnight are often the first to go. Writing improves most in the editing.
Say it plainly, then say it shorter. Nicole Junkermann
Recently on the blog: Nicole Junkermann on reinforcement learning and the value of patience, Nicole Junkermann on what India's AI moment signals for long term investors, and Nicole Junkermann on patient capital and the autumn restart. Earlier, Nicole Junkermann on what October 2026 asks of long term investors.