Author: Herbert Lui
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Essentials week: 8 Lessons from 800 Note Cards in the Zettelkasten
My next post from essentials week, a short collection of the best posts at this blog. Here’s an excerpt: If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that I’m “doing” the original Zettelkasten method technically incorrectly. Ryan Holiday uses the word “perverted” to describe his own note-taking method compared to the one he learned from Robert…
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Essentials week: Don’t think to write, write to think
Since I started writing daily, I’ve now published over 700 blog posts. I wanted to highlight 7 posts this week, so I’ll choose one good post per day. Most of these will be greatest hits—the most popular, discussed, shared, etc.—some may be a deep cut or a next step, or an excerpt from my book…
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Just leave the bags at home?
You leave your house to buy groceries before your dinner plans. “But wait,” your brain says, “There’s more than enough time for you to jog over to your favorite coffee shop and write.” You haven’t been in a long time, so you pack your laptop and fill up your water bottle, and you head out…
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Cold-blooded creative work
Patrick Dubroy writes: You see, warm-blooded animals — like humans or mice — have a stable body temperature that stays within a pretty narrow range. For humans, it’s around 37 degrees Celsius. A few degrees higher or lower and we’re in big trouble. Cold-blooded animals like the painted turtle can adapt their metabolism to the…
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No bad ideas, no good ideas
One of my teachers told me about a student who was generally quiet, but when they spoke up, they said something brilliant. I always wished that quality for myself, but unfortunately, that’s not the case at all. That’s not how my brain works naturally. My good ideas are usually accompanied by bad ideas as well.…
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“How can I help?”
Or, “What would be most helpful?” If someone’s ever nice enough to ask you this, it’s generally a good idea to have a pointed, specific, answer to this question. It just takes a little bit of preparation before the meeting, or even a more intentional mindset during the meeting, to see how the other person…
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Visiting vs. living somewhere
There’s no way to actually know what it’s like to live somewhere unless you actually live there. Maybe you cross that line when you sign a lease, or when you buy furniture. I’m not sure. But the point is, you need to settle down to know a place. The longer you live there, the more…
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Write it down for someone else
Whenever you can, however you can, stored and published in some digital and searchable format for posterity.
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Parenthood and possibilities
A few days after we came home from the hospital, I sent a letter to a friend, including a photo of my son and some first impressions of fatherhood. He responded, simply, “Everything is possible again.” It was the perfect thing to write, because that was exactly how it felt. We could retell our stories…
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Three things about competition
It’s awards season. In between discussing who should’ve gotten what, it’s also a good time to consider the relationship between competitions and creative work. In many ways, it’s always awards season—30 under 30, weekly funding announcements, grants and fellowships, Olympics, etc: Competitions pay the bills Competitions take place because we value stories, drama, and craft.…