Category: Creativity
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Quick notes in case you need to write a book
gwern makes the case for not writing a book. All good stuff to consider, especially ahead of time. While writing a book is unlikely to make you rich, it’s an ambitious endeavor that can take a toll on your mental health and that of the people around you. If you really must write a book—for…
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Pushing less, pushing lightly
There’s a proverb I learned as a young boy, which roughly translates to, “Bitter first, sweet later.” (“先苦後甜.”) Do the difficult things first, and you’ll have a chance to enjoy yourself later. It conveyed the value of delayed gratification. For the most part, it worked for me—although there are some wrinkles I have needed to…
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Make the frontlist and backlist work for each other
Seth Godin wrote a post that often comes to my mind, about frontlist and backlist. He coins and defines both these terms: Frontlist means the new releases, the hits, the stuff that fanboys are looking for or paying attention to. Frontlist gets all the attention, all the glory and all the excitement. They write about…
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Make “good” impossible
When Richard Feynman was learning how to draw, his teachers told him to loosen up. He couldn’t quite figure out what this meant until one teacher told him to draw a person without looking at the paper. Richard quickly realized that it would be impossible to make a good drawing without looking at the paper.…
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Post-travel integration
Earlier this year, I went to Hawaii for my honeymoon (which was the reason for essentials week). When my partner and I returned, we bought a couple of notebooks from Moleskine and decided to recount our trip through that. For me, it meant writing a page full of words documenting moments from the trip. Sometimes,…
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A well-rounded creative practice
When you get better at what you do, you’re also becoming more critical of it. You analyze what’s not working, or what doesn’t feel right, and you improve it. It’s a happy working arrangement until the critical aspect of you gets too much influence. It knows it’s important because its taste is keeping you in…
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Some nice quotes
Dylan O’Sullivan posts some really great classic work into his X feed (I believe he runs the Infinite Books one as well). Here are some that have been rattling around my brain: C.S. Lewis: No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current…
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Progress in restraint
Earlier this year, I decided to make “restraint” the one-word theme of the year. I wouldn’t call it fun, however there’s no doubt it has made my life richer. Here are five notes on how it’s going: Some more observations related to restraint:
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Don’t start from scratch
Here’s an interesting prompt: avoid starting from scratch. This constraint prohibits the creation of new raw material (e.g., writing into a blank document). You may only rewrite or edit existing text. The result is much more consideration on what already exists. You scour your drafts, your existing work, and look for neglected ideas. You might…
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Optional prerequisites
On your first few trips to the gym, you’re trying to figure how much weight you can actually lift. (Or how fast you can run, how fast you can swim, how deep you can stretch, etc.) One good principle to adhere to is to lift what you can lift. You start light, and see what…