Over the last 18 months, Ship 30 for 30 has helped over 4,000 beginner writers learn the fundamentals and start writing online.

And at the foundation of Ship 30 are 5 creative principles we teach from Day 1 to help each Shipper develop the mindset of a prolific digital writer:

1. Make noise, listen for signal. In the beginning, volume wins. Make hundreds of small bets, writing about anything and everything. Then find the overlap of what felt easy to you and what the market loved to read – then double down on that.

2. Consistency creates competence. No one has 50 shitty versions of anything. They either have 10 shitty versions & quit, or they keep going long enough to figure it out.

3. Constraints breed creativity. "Write every day." is hard. "Write and publish a 250-word essay on productivity at 8 AM on Twitter each day for 30 days." is much easier. Add constraints with your lengths, topics, medium, and cadence – then watch your creativity thrive.

4. Your ego is the bottleneck. If you have a fear of publishing online or a crushing perfectionism, you have an ego problem. You are assuming everyone on Earth is sitting at their computer, waiting for you to hit publish so they can critique every word. Newsflash: they aren't – they're too busy thinking about themselves.

5. You can't steer a stationary ship. 99% of internet users are strictly consumers. They read, they scroll, they like, but they never create. Which is why the second you hit publish for the first time, you leapfrog the other 99% of people who never get their ship sailing. And once your ship is sailing, there's no turning back.

If you're at the beginning of your creative journey, print these out and staple them to your desk.

Then, stick to them for 12 months and your success is inevitable.