I’ve been reading a lot of Inkhaven applications, enough to have gathered some thoughts and arrived on some low-resolution standards for what reliably piques my interest or chases it away. Most of it, in my opinion, is common sense.

Still, keep in mind that some of these are idiosyncratic and counterbalanced by preferences among others on the team; I’m only one of five judges. Nor am I writing this for potential applicants, despite the second-person framing; I hope this post remains strategically obscure! (Hence the oblique title; my true audience is fellow alumni curious to peek behind the curtain.) But if you found this anyway, good job. I’ve restrained myself rhetorically to show respect to all applicants, especially because I want more of them — apply here.

Five things that depress me

1. you are using AI to write

I’ve been persuaded that there’s a possible Type of Guy who, having little exposure to AI writing until recently, finds himself in the honeymoon period and leans on it too much to tighten his work, and this should earn some latitude. I also think it’s possible to communicate good and useful things with an AI-written piece, and it’s plausible a very bad writer is better off for relying on it. However, I do not want bad writers at Inkhaven, and if you are not repulsed by LLM writing then I distrust your taste and skill.

2. you are LinkedIn-maxxing

Much the same applies to the good ol’ human slop. Show some craft, show some ingenuity! Show some jouissance, for God’s sake.

3. you are only writing about your experiences with meditation, psychedelics, and/or spirituality

I think it is great that people out there are having profound experiences. Please show me you can write about something other than that.

4. you are only writing about your gender and/or dating life

It’s hard being a man/woman, I get it. Please show me you can write about something other than that.

5. you are only writing for or about your job

Some people enjoy writing and are good at it and thus do it professionally or semi-professionally. Great! This is very different from Inkhaven. For one, I am not excited by someone coming to write 30 posts on the same topic. For two, those posts would be written anyways as part of your job. For three, I suspect that job-writing has cannibalized the artist’s part of your soul and left you incapable of writing for the joy of it anymore…

Five things that excite me

1. you write a variety of things

Inkhaven is hard, and you will find yourself writing things that you didn’t expect to coming into the program. I like to see evidence that you enjoy experimentation and have enough range to keep things fresh the whole month. It also helps me assess your “general writing factor” across many forms.

2. you have at least one tremendously good piece

Some people have a good floor, but sometimes I just want to see a ceiling. Give me something to get excited about! If I know you can squeeze out a banger, then I want to squeeze you for more.

3. you seem well-read

I am somewhat biased as a book-swallower myself, but I am very bullish on people with big inputs, Not only is it a necessary prerequisite for taste and techne, but a richly-nourished brain is in turn a nourishing font to sup from, both for you and others.

4. you have been pre-exposed to rationalists

Inkhaven is hosted at Lighthaven, the Mecca of rationalists, and there are certain people for whom the environment would be a singularly unpleasant experience to live in for a whole month. Ideally the applicant knows this beforehand.

5. you have The Sauce

What is The Sauce? The Sauce that can be named is not The Sauce.

The Sauce can be hot and The Sauce can be cold. The Sauce can be loud and The Sauce can be quiet.

The Sauce can be conscious and The Sauce can be unconscious. Where The Sauce resides, it is seldom effortful to read. Where The Sauce exists, virtu takes its seat.

The Sauce is not in a word. The Sauce is not in a sentence. The Sauce is not in a paragraph. The Sauce is between words, and between sentences, and between paragraphs, yet also within them.

Is The Sauce a voice? The Sauce can be in a voice, and The Sauce can not be in a voice. A voice can be noise, but The Sauce is a song.

The Sauce can ebb, and flow, and lapse entirely, but where The Sauce is found once The Sauce can be found again.

The Sauce can be learned — but most people do so unconsciously. The Sauce might even be taught (though I’ve never seen it done) — but not in a month.

I love to see The Sauce.

It’s there when the words slide by like water and your brains twist just right and the world suddenly seems newer than it was. It’s there where humanity bleeds through the seams.

We dash our brains against the page, and sometimes the mess is touched with grace.