Active Recall!

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Daily creativity: First, through writing

As mentioned, I’m going to start writing more often. I initially said every day. I then followed by not writing every day. I’m going to say every day again. I want to get better at writing.

Here’s what I’ve been doing to improve as a writer:

  • Started an article writing course. It’s the one from Psychotactics. So far I’m really enjoying it. Thinking about it now, it’s the most I’ve spent on something digital. Probably more than I’ve spent on eBooks this year. Maybe. Though probably not more than I’ve spent on eBooks and audiobooks combined. Man I’m buying too many audiobooks.
  • 9 connections exercise. Sort of. I’ve been doing a 9 connections exercise just about every day for the past couple months. It’s been my writing practice. Within the first hour of my day, I open an app on my phone and go through some writing prompts to build an outline. I made a few videos with a similar exercise. I write 3 sources down and then I got hrough each and think of an idea from each and then I try to connect the ideas to other sources. When I’m feeling it, I try connecting the three sources to each other. Sometimes a source comes to mind and I hesitate because it might be hard to think of an idea from that source. Without fail, something comes to mind. It’s similar to James Altucher’s Idea Machine method. I now have a bunch of outlines that might not materialize to anything else. But going through the exercise is good practice.
  • Writing daily. I’ve been writing daily. Last year I wrote 100 posts in 100 days. It was challenging. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be quite as hard this year and I suspect I might even be better. I’m going to give it another shot. I’ll start keeping better track of the posts. And I’ll post them on this blog as I go along.

I want to post daily right now as I’m starting the article writing course for a couple reasons. First, I’ll be able to set a baseline for my writing. I’ll be able to compare before and after the course whether I’m improving or not. Second, I want to build the habit of posting daily.

Cardio Sucks book note: A little bit at a time

I need to start doing cardio. I did what I usually do when I want to start something new. I bought a book. Yes, I need to start applying it. I bought Cardio Sucks by Michael Matthews. I went with someone whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past. I read Matthews’s Bigger Leaner Stronger and I listen to his podcast regularly. He’s practical and motivating. Here’s what he has to say about building habits in Cardio Sucks.

Mini-habits can also fit into even the nuttiest of schedules and days. Andre Dubus III wrote the inimitable House of Sand and Fog in 20-minute daily installments in his parked car, longhand on a notepad, before driving home from work to join his family for the evening. Twenty minutes per day. House of freaking Sand and Fog. I love that and remember it whenever I feel like slacking off.

This reminded me of the Joshua Schachter interview in Founders at Work. The book is filled with very successful tech startup founders who succeeded in the first internet bubble. A lot of the stories are as expected: blood, sweat, and tears. Schachter, though, talks about building del.icio.us in his free time in very small increments.

Livingston: When you were doing this in your spare time, did you ever say, “Ugh. This is too much work”?

Schachter: Not really. I was always very careful (not anymore, because the guys that I work with are better programmers) to structure the code—each chunk of code wasn’t larger than the screen—such that I could come in and look at it, figure out what I’m doing, do it, and be done for the day in 15 minutes. So if I could get one thing done a day, I was happy. A lot of stuff, if I could spend more time, I did, but as long as I could get one or two things done a week total, if I didn’t have time, I didn’t have time. So it moved pretty slowly. I worked on it for years.

Learning to estimate 15 minutes of work accurately becomes a skill itself. Good enough is good enough. “If I didn’t have time, I didn’t have time.”

It’s easy to forget this. I’m trying to remember it in pursuing success in all the different pillars in life. More than once, I’ve put too much weight on the bar thinking I could power through it with enough willpower. I’m sure I’ll do it again in the future. At least once a week, I get frustrated that I don’t have enough time to finish some post or a video. In the long run, it doesn’t matter if I post it next week or even the week after.

You can argue that it might set a trend of laziness or not keeping to a deadline. That’s valid. On the other hand, in a year, if I write 80 posts or 120 posts it’s sort of the same. At least to a new reader. In the sense that they’ll at best read 2 or 3 articles and most likely will only read the one they land on, if that.

Anyway, I’m a fan of consistency. I know that I can accomplish something in small increments as long as I keep the momentum going. At the same time, missing a day isn’t anything to beat myself up over. Three days in a row, though? Now we’ve got a problem.

I just finished reading Ed Latimore’s book

I recently watched an interview between Tom Bilyeu (Quest Nutrition founder) and Evan Puschak (The Nerdwriter). Puschak talks about developing your own world view. Bilyeu says he’s built his by combining great ideas from other people. He looks for the connections between ideas. I’m trying to do the same.

Bilyeu mentions Pete Carroll and his philosophy. In one of his talks, Caroll talked about John Wooden and the importance of knowing what you believe in.

But what hit me is that he had this philosophy. He knew what he thought, and it wasn’t like anybody else. And I just stumbled into trying into figuring that out…. If you want to be great, if you want to do something really at the top of your game, you got to figure out who you are, what you stand for, what’s important. And not even that, so you can convey it to the people around you, so they know about it.

What does this have to do with Ed Latimore’s book? He knows what he believes in. He wrote it down clearly for others to learn from. He knows how to fit wisdom into a tweet. In Not Caring What Other People Think is a Superpower, Latimore starts each chapter with a tweet-length heading and he expands on that idea over a page or two.

Here’s what Latimore has to say about having activities that lead to growth:

Overcoming the struggle is where it’s at. You will always need something to force you to grow if you want to be happy. There must always be a mountain to climb because happiness is in scaling the mountain; not in reaching the apex.

I learned about Ed Latimore through an episode of The Knowledge Project. I opened up Amazon and bought his book after hearing him explaining life before and after alcohol:

You ever watch Angel? That old show Angel? About the vampire with a soul. He was a vampire so he did a lot of ill shit as a vampire. And all of a sudden he’s got a soul so now he feels guilty about it. So he spends a lot of time brooding and feeling bad and trying to do good to make up for all the evil he put into the world.

If you enjoy him in that interview, you’ll like this book. The topics are similar and his voice comes through through in his writing. Some chapters end with actionable steps to take.

I’d love to know what I believe in and share it in a way that’s clear and entertaining. Ed Latimore shows what that can lead to. I’ll do the work to get there. One post at a time.

Book reaction: The Forever War

I just read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Here’s how I think I came across it:

  • I was browsing Audible because I’m always browsing Audible
  • I saw a link to The Accidental Time Machine which is a somewhat recent book and part of the description mentioned that the author wrote The Forever War
  • I came across The Forever War while walking around Amazon Books in Columbus Circle

At that point I learned it was published in the 70s. It was also at that point that I learned it was a science fiction book. I set out to pick up a softcover novel. I’ll write another post on this, but I suspect it will help me practice focus.

I just finished the book and would like to present some reasons for why you might want to check the book out.

Did you enjoy Interstellar? Particularly the haunting idea of aging while your friends check out a planet with time dilation effect and you’re many years older while they’ve only aged a few hours?

You might like The Forever War.

Are you interested in the Vietnam War? And have you ever imagined what it would be like if instead of Vietnam it was different galaxies and times?

You might like The Forever War.

Do you enjoy brutal war scenes with people wearing suits that would fit right into Gears of War or Halo?

You might like The Forever War.

 

I really enjoyed it.

Some questions for myself

Here are some questions I’ve had lately regarding this site and what I’ve been trying to make lately. I’ll work through these. I’m in no rush.

  • What do I actually want to make? I want to write. I want to make videos. I want to make the podcast. I want to draw. I’m figuring out what order I want to do those things in.
  • Do I want to focus on books? Sort of. I’ve been reading a lot this year so it’d be good to share some of what I’m enjoying. I’m not sure if it’s interesting to other people. Then again, it’s up to me to make it interesting to other people. Quantity over quality might be a good idea right now but it might just lead to aimless things like this post.
  • What do I enjoy reading myself? I’ve always loved content from Bill Simmons and then Grantland and now The Ringer. I also enjoy everything from Barking Up The Wrong Tree. I subscribe to Stratechery. I can start by being a terrible imitation of them.
  • Why am I doing this? I’m not clear on this. I want to be a better writer. On an episode of The Showrunner podcast, they said that you should make sure your podcast focused on one of these three things: entertaining others, educating, or inspiring. I want to focus on entertaining others, but I’m a long way off from that. Why do I want to entertain others? It seems like the most fun route of the three. And it’s challenging.

How to post more (by writing less!)

What’s the single idea of this post? I’ll improve by writing shorter posts

I’m reading Josh Bernoff’s Writing Without Bullshit. I liked this idea of getting a grasp of different word counts:

Aim for a word count. Your emails should be under 250 words. Your blog posts should be under 750. Learn the feel of a 100-, 300-, 500-, or 1,000-word hunk of prose. Imagine that words cost $ 10 each. How much can you afford to spend, and where can you economize? A word count makes brevity a concrete goal.

I don’t have a feel for those hunks of prose. Someday I want to be on the Hunks of Prose calendar, so I’ll practice with shorter pieces.

I don’t have trouble sitting down and writing. Not through talent but through practicing and setting up systems. I have trouble sitting down and writing things worth reading. I need to practice improving different elements of writing.

My hunch is that aiming for shorter posts will help me shore up my many weaknesses. While the frequency helps with a strength: I can change topics day to day and stay interested. What am I hoping this will lead to?

  • I’ll actually finish posts. I have plenty of post outlines and drafts. Some even have a lot of words in them. They’re nowhere close to finished. A giant giant wall of text is further from finished than a short, clear outline is.
  • I’ll actually revise my work. I can sit down and free-write for hours on end. It’s overwriting. It’s not meant for reading in the first place. When I intend to write for something I’ll publish, I still end up with raw material that’s way longer than I want to revise. I add placeholders to keep writing a wall of text and then I don’t finish because all the placeholders become overwhelming.
  • I’ll actually stick to one idea. A connection comes to mind, I add a placeholder. Then I try to connect ideas. Some aren’t fully formed. Shorter posts will help me focus on single ideas at a time. If some disconnected idea comes to mind, I’ll pat myself on the back because now I have a new idea. For a different post. For a different day. Back to today’s idea.
  • I’ll (hopefully) actually get feedback. “Hey read this 2000-word thing I didn’t revise.” That’s a hard sell. I need feedback to improve. Shawn Coyne says it’ll be hard to sell a book if you can’t get 10,000 people willing to read a free book. I can’t get feedback on long posts if I can’t get you to read my short posts.

Why all the “actually”s? I’ve read enough how-to-write books to know how important each phase is in writing. Now I need to actually go through those steps.