In the artistic world, the first season of The Simpsons had low production values. Yet its popularity allowed it to evolve into one of the most well-constructed shows of all time. The first episodes of Seinfeld were similarly awful, but something about the show brought people back, which gave the creators time to develop a TV masterpiece.
To spot a future winning product, look for the bad version to be almost irrationally popular—and for consumers to be extending or modifying the product for new uses.
People often ask me to predict the future of Bitcoin. I don’t make financial recommendations, but I do own a small amount of Bitcoin because although the user interface is a masochist’s delight, a global fan base has rallied around Bitcoin. And every day, people are finding new ways to use it. Perhaps Bitcoin already had its big run, but that big run was predicted early on. You would have made money betting on my two rules for spotting a winner.
Writer’s Block
My job these days involves writing at least one commercial-grade comic strip per day, writing several pages for a book per day, and creating a live one-person show on the Internet every day. Sometimes I film a micro lesson on some topic of interest for my Locals subscribers. That’s a lot of creating. I can do all of that because I don’t have the thing you might call writer’s block. But to be clear, I didn’t overcome writer’s block; I reframed it out of my existence. My reframes for writers will not turn an uncreative person into a creative one, but I can unleash whatever creative potential you have with a few reframes that have benefited my career. Here’s the first one.
Usual Frame: I can’t think of anything to write.
Reframe 1: I’m in the wrong environment for writing.
If I were sitting on my couch trying to write this chapter, I would be shooting blanks. My cute dog would be pestering me, my refrigerator would be whistling my name, and I can usually depend on some major electrical, plumbing, or other disaster to pop up when I am within the same zip code as my house. If I were less experienced as a writer, I would be cursing my writer’s block.
But it wouldn’t be writer’s block at all. It would be a case of the wrong setting. I am now writing as quickly as I can type while sitting in the snack bar of my health club. I am surrounded by noisy toddlers, chatty diners, a TV, and every manner of gym noise and distraction, also known as “perfect for writing.” Weird, right? Seems the opposite of common sense, but science and experience confirm that the best environments for writing are where you can actively ignore the people around you. Later today I will go to Starbucks because it is busy and noisy. I will choose the busiest and noisiest Starbucks location from a choice of four near my home. The writing will come easily, even with decaf.
I once wrote an entire book in a restaurant booth during the busy meal periods. (I owned the restaurant so they couldn’t kick me out.) Not only was it easy to write the book, but it was also enjoyable. The environment was so perfect for writing, work became play.
I can’t guarantee that writing in public places will be better for everyone, but I strongly recommend experimenting to see if it works for you. If not, keep searching until you find a physical environment that does work for you.
In a similar vein, you also need to find the time of day when your brain is naturally creative. For me, that time is 4:00-10:00 AM, which is not unusual for writers. We tend to write best after midnight and before noon. Earlier in the book, I discussed the reframe of managing your energy, not your time. Writing is the best use of that reframe. If you are trying to write when your energy is not matched to the task, you’re begging for writer’s block. Here’s a reframe that calls it out.
Usual Frame: I have writer’s block.
Reframe 2: I’m trying to write at the wrong time of day.
Writing Something Bad
Let’s say you found a good place to write, and it’s the right time of day for your creative juices to flow. If you can’t think of anything good to write, never leave the page blank. The better alternative is to create something bad and see if you can fix it. And if you can’t fix it, maybe another idea will hit you while you try because life rewards action. The only bad writing is no writing at all. Everything else is either good or under-edited. And editing is easier than writing, so putting something on a page moves you to an easier phase of work. That’s why you do it.
Usual Frame: I can’t think of anything good to write.
Reframe 3: I can write something bad and fix it.
I am modeling that technique as I write this paragraph. Below the sentence I am writing are three bullet points you won’t see by the time this book is published. Each bullet point makes a point that I think is likely to have a place in this chapter. The next step will be to delete the weakest points, put them in order, and write the top one as a full sentence. Next, I apply these filters to my new sentence:
Is It a Direct Sentence?
It is better to say the boy hit the ball than the ball was hit by the boy. Brains process direct sentences faster. Tell me who is doing the thing before telling me the thing.
Too Many Adjectives?
Don’t say it was very hot. Say it was hot. Neither sentence is specific, but one uses too many words. Brains like fewer words.
Nuke the Adverbs
There might never be a right time to use an adverb.
Write at a Sixth-Grade Level
For most kinds of writing—from humor to business—the best sentence is the simplest one that gets the message across. If you use words that a twelve-year-old would understand, you will sound like the smartest person in the conversation. As a bonus, your ideas will stand out more since they’re not buried in word debris. Simple sentences are better in every way. They are more persuasive, easier to remember, and easier for others to consume. Don’t fall into the trap of mistaking long sentences and brainy jargon for genius-level insight. Save that nonsense for dating a librarian.
Here is the sentence stub I mentioned earlier that expanded to the paragraph above:
Bullet point: Simpler is better for writing.
How to Get Those Bullet Points
If you have no ideas worthy of becoming bullet points and want to generate some, I don’t recommend sitting in front of a blank page. That’s a form of torture. Most of my writing happens when I am taking a walk, folding laundry, getting in the shower, or enjoying the luxury of my Man Cave (my garage). These are all part of the writing process, and science backs me on this. It isn’t a coincidence that your best ideas pop into your head when you are doing something mindless and pleasant.
Funny Words
If you are trying to make your writing style interesting or humorous, add a funny word substitution. All you do is look at your completed sentence and ask yourself what word substitution would sound funnier.
For example, if your sentence said you took a quick detour to avoid trouble, you might instead say you “scampered away” or “took a hasty detour” to add some energy to the sentence. Look at every word in your sentence and ask yourself what word means the same as what you have on the page but sounds funny or adds flavor or energy. Words that have embedded intentions are often the funniest. That’s why the word yank is funnier than the word pull. Yank implies some anger or frustration. Pull is just a functional word. Language is full of lively, attitude-driven words you can use instead of dead words. Here are a few examples: