Usually, I refer to discipline as persevering through with a job, a task, and one’s daily routine. But a Bible teacher taught me something else about discipline, which was being ruthless in the writing of one’s work, essays, articles etc.

Writers can tend to waffle, so cutting down on the extraneous material, or the stuff one doesn’t need, is being ruthless, or is being disciplined. With a word limit, this is especially relevant, as one has to get to the point.

So, the maxim about being disciplined or ruthless in one’s writing stuck with me and it’s an instruction that can apply to other areas as well, such as what to include in a collection, lists, and research.

Being ruthless or disciplined invites a decision in what to select and keep and what to throw out, which may depend on what one’s purpose is in writing something, researching something, listing something, etc.

It came as a revelation to me that ruthlessness in writing could actually be discipline, but I shouldn’t have been surprised.