Writing is an essential skill for any PhD student or academic, but it's also a huge source of stress. This is partly due to the scale and complexity of the task, but also due to a general lack of training in writing. Many of the most common pieces of advice (like, "just get words down and sort it out later") simply do not work. In this lecture given at the University of Tübingen in October 2022 I explain some key principles of structure and process that can be applied to any project.