A really good book on improving your (nonfiction) writing is Zinsser's On Writing Well.
For me the hardest part of effective writing is revision. There are the few lucky writers who get things right in the first draft. Then there are the rest of us, who need to spend 10x the time or longer on rewriting and fussing. Unfortunately many people in the latter group think they fall into the first.
In tech essays in particular, you can get far by trying to sound as little like Paul Graham as possible. Let his style be your anti-lodestar.
For me the hardest part of effective writing is revision. There are the few lucky writers who get things right in the first draft. Then there are the rest of us, who need to spend 10x the time or longer on rewriting and fussing. Unfortunately many people in the latter group think they fall into the first.
In tech essays in particular, you can get far by trying to sound as little like Paul Graham as possible. Let his style be your anti-lodestar.