9 Ways to Become a Boring Writer

A great post by Matt Anderson. Here’s an outline:

If a book with a unique concept or message makes the New York Times bestseller list, copy it.
Read everything your peers write.
Spend all your free time consuming “pop culture.”
Read the people you want to imitate, not the people they learned from.
Publish right away.
Spend all your time on social networks.
Never miss your chance to chime in on a controversy.
Be a contrarian.
Always strive to be first.

You can read the whole thing here for an explanation of each point.

#4 is especially significant, it seems to me, for a younger generation of pastors. It is a wonderful thing (in my opinion) that John Piper and Tim Keller, for example, are so influential. But if they don’t then take the next step and read the writers who shaped Piper and Keller, the next generation will simply be dealing with copies of a copy.