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Advanced Writing Advice for the Modern Creator
Next-level writing is not just about consistency. It’s about better first drafts. It’s about pushing the niche boundaries. It’s about moving past the comfort of rituals. It’s about dwelling on an idea where others won’t.
22 Time-Saving Tips for the Modern Writer
What these tips really do is trim down the time you spend not writing. That way, you can focus on commas, semicolons, and surprising your audience with an antiquated adjective. Freed from slow procedures, you can finally get around to writing those ideas tucked away in the corner of your mind.
5 Ways to Write More, Faster
Whether you’re working to create the next quotable line for your feature film, or simply crafting a Seth Godin-style short post, you need to have ammunition for the days you can’t seem to get momentum.
How To Unlock the Power of Persuasion in Your Writing
I’m writing this because I want to help you. Even though I’ve been writing professionally for over 10 years, I haven’t done much writing about writing.
No, You Will Never Write That Book
If there’s anything a writer hates to hear, it’s this: “Oh, you’re a writer? I have a great idea for a book!” Nobody means any harm about this, of course. But the implication is clear — anybody can write anything if they try hard enough. After …
6 Lessons Jimmy Stewart Taught Me About Creativity
Before we get into the creative lessons I learned from the life of Jimmy Stewart, a reminder: When we look at the machine of cinema now, we forget the scrappy, chaotic explosion of innovation from which it came. Consider this: in the first decade …
How to Make Art Which is Truly Unique
She sits across from the music legend, black shirt hanging loosely around her shoulders, hair draped over her chest. It's been 3:22 seconds since either of them have spoken. …
The One Element Which Matters Most in Creative Work
Kate walks on the beach in front of me, her father to her right. I don’t know what, exactly, I am looking for. Something, anything, which shows they share a gene pool— a 6th toe maybe? A flair on the right pinky which had been passed down through …
Forget Going Viral and Do This Instead
After walking to the stage, pumping his fist, and yelling ecstatically, Chancelor Bennett gives a nervous chuckle when he gets behind the microphone. The crowd is on edge, waiting to see what this first-time Grammy winner will say. Every musical …
4 Undeniable Rules of Creative Work
The Lady Gaga instrumental crooned as I moved into downward dog. 41 days after a complete mental breakdown, I pulled my tailbone to the sky as the music played. There were no words, but as a not-so-closeted pop fan, I sang them in my …
A Dirty Secret About Creative People
This is something it took me a long time to admit, even to myself. Are you ready? Here it is: All creative people are self-absorbed. We care about what goes on in our heads more than what goes on in “real life.” We would rather look at what …
4 Ways I Improved My Life as the World’s Most Average Person
Ready for some honesty you don’t see much on the Internet? Here we go: I am 26 years old, have started exactly zero companies to date, and currently have a net worth of approximately not very much. I have 3 very close friends and a pretty close …
The Reason You Feel Motivated at Night But Lose It By Morning
It was May in 1930. A man with a fabulous mustache sat upright in his favorite chair, seconds away from dozing off. Just as his head dipped into dream world, the ball bearings plummeted from his hand and onto a metal plate, where the clatter shook …
One Exercise Which Will Change the Way You Write Forever
Okay, first I’ll give you the very simple goal of this tip: REMOVE THE BRAIN FROM THE WRITING PROCESS. Let me explain. At a job — you think about stuff. A specific problem is presented and an objective decision is made based on cost and time and …
This is The Most Overrated Pleasure
No, it’s not the cell phone specifically. The most overrated pleasure is the notification (in all forms). You see how it happened, don’t you? First: The notification told us about human interaction: Ring! — “Oh, someone is calling. …
These 6 Words Helped Me Overcome My Fear of Failure
Blink-blink-blink. My cursor pulsed on the blank page. I wrote sentence and then deleted every word. I stood up 6 times for coffee in 2 hours. Surprisingly, my page would still be blank when I returned. I wanted to start a blog. I wanted to start …
Here’s One Thing You Can Do If You Have a Boring Job
My first week of corporate work, I was assigned 18 company policies to read. My second week of work, I was given 40 hours to complete a draft of ONE document. My third week of work, I was in a meeting about a project I might join one day. My forth …
2 Words I Use to Get Smarter Every Day
“Hedge fund manager?” I affirm, nodding and thinking of lawn care. “That makes sense. The world needs those.” Probably 16 times a day I say things which are wrong or dumb or misinformed. More often than not everyone goes along with it because I’m …
How to Ignore Absolutely Everything
And that’s how I got banned from Amazon preorders for a year. Oh wait. I have to write the post first, don’t I? Let me go back. Here is what I’ve noticed about being an adult so far: Everyone wants my attention. Everyone …