Category: Creativity
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Choose someone else
In case you’ve been waiting to be chosen, there’s plenty of great advice on choosing yourself (or picking yourself). There seems to be much less advice about the natural next step: choosing someone else. These days, you and I and everyone else is a gatekeeper in some way. That means we also have the ability…
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The real thing
If you want to write a book, write the book. Don’t build an audience. Don’t look for an agent. Don’t write a proposal. Don’t look for a more prominent person to ghostwrite for. Write the book. Do the real thing. When you can’t do the real thing—you’re not well-trained or qualified enough—get as close to…
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To break through perfectionism, take a small step in any direction
In Hidden Potential, Adam Grant writes (I’ve reformatted for a better list read): In their quest for flawless results, research suggests that perfectionists tend to get three things wrong. In Adversity for Sale, Jeezy writes: I always tell people when you’re feeling stressed out, lost, and overwhelmed, you’re better off taking a small step in…
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“That’s too bad, but nothing for me to be ashamed of”
Raymond Carver, who worked many jobs (including as a janitor, and a textbook editor), writes: I have friends who’ve told me they had to hurry a book because they needed the money, their editor or their wife was leaning on them or leaving them – something, some apology for the writing not being very good.…
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Three quotes on ordinariness
“We think that if only we get the big things right, everything will magically fall into place. If we choose to marry the right person, it’ll all be okay. If we choose the right career, we’ll be happy. If we pick the right investment, we’ll be rich. This wisdom is, at best, partially true. You…
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The one line paradox
Sometimes it’s much easier to write 1,000 words on a topic than to write 10. As Mark Twain writes, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Or as Arnold Kling writes, “When I finish writing a book review, I will often say to myself, ‘There! Now…
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Practice as perpetuation
A couple of days ago, someone told me that they saw me using a portable monitor and decided to buy one for themselves. It’s just another reminder that people learn from each other and get energy and inspiration from each other. If you wish something was more widespread, the best thing you can do is…
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Three things about your competitors
If a tattoo artist does a good job the first time you get a tattoo, you’ll be interested in getting more tattoos. They’ve just created an opportunity for other tattoo artists. If somebody reads a book about creativity, they’re probably actually more likely to read another book about the topic—not less. While competitive energy can…
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615 days of blogging for the hell of it
Whiona writes: Why is that the end goal of blogging? Of writing? Just to make money and grow our followers? To increase our traffic so we can expose our visitors to 300 repetitive ads that take up their entire phone screen? To “convert” our readers into our customers, because them reading and enjoying what we…
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Swoopers and bashers
“Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.” Kurt Vonnegut Thomas Basbøll…