Time to Write

Nudge yourself to write more (Jerry Seinfeld's advice)

The blog for the book, “Nudge,” recently quoted Jerry Seinfeld’s approach to keeping up his writing. He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write:

"He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said, 'For each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain. Don’t break the chain.'

 “Nudge” is written by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, and looks at how situations can be structured so as to encourage desired behaviour. Here are a few nudges I suggest for writers:

Stopping your writing for the day in the middle of a sentence or at least in the middle of a paragraph, so that you know what to write the moment you resume writing;

 Having all the necessary resources ready at the start of a writing session;

Turning off your phone and your email while you’re writing;

Telling a friend what your writing goals are, week by week, knowing that they’ll ask whether you’re reaching them (if necessary, ask them to keep asking you every week).

For more tips on being more creative and productive, subscribe to my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send a request now to [email protected]

 

An antidote to the negative people you encounter

Maybe you've heard of Randy Pausch's last lecture--delivered when he knew he was terminally ill. It has become an internet phenomenon and best-selling book, and he died knowing that the money from that will take good care of his family. Here, from an interview conducted before he became ill, is one of his observations, about people who greet new ideas with negativity:

“I'm constantly finding myself in situations where people are saying, well, it's never been done that way before, and I say, well, that's fine, and I guess that's an instructive piece of knowledge to share with me, but why are you saying that as if it's some sort of design constraint? You know, you said you wanted to accomplish something. And I suggested, well, why don't you do thus-and-such. And then you said, but it's never been done that way before! But I say that's not relevant to whether or not this is a good solution. Of course if you told me it had been done and it failed, that would be really useful data, all right.”

You can read the full interview with Pausch here.

How to be a Streetcomber

Richard Stomp, innovation and strategy manager in the Netherlands, suggested that to be creative, you should try “streetcombing”—like beachcombing, but on the streets. I described the process in my monthly e-bulletin (if you haven’t subscribed, it’s free by email request to [email protected]) and you an also watch a seven-minute highlight of Stomp’s talk  here.

A variation of this is to pretend you're a Martian who has just landed. Look at everything with fresh eyes. Spot the contradictions (notice how people rush to their offices, just so they can sit there for the rest of the day, or how a child can play happily with an empty matchbox but by the time we grow up we have to buy an expensive Playstation that does most of the playing for us). If you dare, look at your own routine with Martian eyes, too...what fresh ideas does that give you?

How you can beat S.A.D. ( the winter blues)

Like quite a few others (you, maybe?) I suffer from SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder—when winter starts to come in. Sometimes it sneaks up on me and it’s not until I’m fully in the Winter Blues that I notice it has happened. Here are a few things you can do if you have the same issue:

• Get a light box. These are special bright lights you put by the side of your desk and keep on for an hour a day or so in the mornings. You can Google "SAD lights" to find a supplier.

• Exercise. Regular aerobic exercise helps ward off depression. I do at least 3 days a week, and up to six. I listen to podcasts on my iPod while using the treadmill or cross-trainer.

• Consider supplements. I use St. John’s Wort, vitamin D, and 5HTP, all available at health food stores (disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, check with yours before making changes to your diet and supplementation, etc.).

• Plan a trip. Before winter really set in, I had a nice break in a sunny climate and am looking forward to another one in April. If you have a trip to a warm, sunny place to look forward to, that alone can lighten your mood.

 If you’ve found anything additional helpful, please add a comment or let me know at J4London(at)aol.com.

(There are more tips about how to be more creative and productive in my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin--to subscribe just send an email request now to [email protected].)

Why not being a full-time writer is an advantage

Maybe you envy people who can be full-time writers. In some ways it's great, but there is also a downside. Consider this quote:

"I think aspiring writers should be wary of building their lives around the career of being a writer to the exclusion of everything else. Because when what you know is writing and only writing, you'll eventually end up crafting stories about writers. Which is, yes, boring."

n     Carolyn Kellogg – blog in the LA Times “Jacket Copy”

If you have another full-time job, you're banking lots of material that you can use in your writing. If  it's your goal to be a full-time writer, keep a journal of what's happening now and you'll have plenty of material to draw upon later.

(There's a lot more guidance about the writing life in my book, YOUR WRITING COACH, published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing and available from Amazon and other online retailers and book stores.)

What does a renowned artist say about creativity?

Artist, author and director Shaun Tan shared his ideas about drawing, writing, and creativity in a five-minute video on the InFrame.tv vodcast from Australia.

He also discussed his illustrated book, “The Lost thing,” and his animated adaptation of it. I think if you’re interested in any kind of creativity you’ll enjoy his comments. You can watch the video here. 

(For more ideas on how to be more creative and productive, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin—just send an email request now to [email protected].)

Maybe you're a late bloomer! (Never too late to start writing!)

Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article on late bloomers in the creative arts made the point that studies show the stereotype that creative people are at their best when they are young is a myth. 

 “[This] was true of film, Galenson points out in his study "Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity." Yes, there was Orson Welles, peaking as a director at twenty-five. But then there was Alfred Hitchcock, who made "Dial M for Murder," "Rear Window," "To Catch a Thief," "The Trouble with Harry," "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," and "Psycho"—one of the greatest runs by a director in history—between his fifty-fourth and sixty-first birthdays. 

Mark Twain published "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" at forty-nine. 

Daniel Defoe wrote "Robinson Crusoe" at fifty-eight.”

Gladwell points out that often late bloomers just take a while to get good at what they do:

“On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure: while the late bloomer is revising and despairing and changing course and slashing canvases to ribbons after months or years, what he or she produces will look like the kind of thing produced by the artist who will never bloom at all.”

 He also points out that late bloomers need support to keep going—often financial as well as emotional:

“We'd like to think that mundane matters like loyalty, steadfastness, and the willingness to keep writing checks to support what looks like failure have nothing to do with something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it's just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.”

 If, like me, you’re closer to your second childhood than your first, this is good news. You can read and download the article from his blog: Malcolm Gladwell on late bloomers.

(Late bloomer or early, you're going to get great tips on being more productive and creative in your email-box once a month for free if you send an email request right now to [email protected] ask to subscriber to the Brainstorm e-bulletin!)

The history of greeting cards - funny animation by Chris Harding

Need a little break from writing?  Animator and cartoonist Chris Harding made a great short animated video about the history of greeting cards, including how the business treats writers. It's called "Make Mine Shoebox," and you can watch it here.

He also draws a funny comic strip, "We the Robots," at www.wetherobots.com--kind of a "Dilbert" with robots.

Three secrets of innovation - Tom Kelley, IDEO video

What are some of the keys to innovation? Tom Kelley of IDEO gave a talk at the Idea Forum 2008 with these key points: 

• Anthropology is the most important contributor to innovation because anthropologists are really good at identifying the most important problems to solve;

 A useful phenomenon to look for is not déjà vu but vuja de (meaning, this is a familiar experience but you’re looking at it in a fresh way);

• If you design a great customer (or client) experience [rather than  just a commodity or product or service] you can charge a huge mark-up.

 You can watch an eight-minute video of some of the highlights here.

(For more tips on how to be creative and productive, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin--just send an email request now to [email protected])

John Cleese on creativity

John Cleese gave a talk on creativity at the Creativity World Forum recently. Among his key points:

 ·      the unconscious mind sometimes continues to work even when the conscious mind thinks something is finished;

 ·      interruptions are the enemy of flow and the greater the complexity of what you are doing, the more destructive interruptions are;

 ·      you can create a mood that enables you to be more creative, by forming a kind of oasis in your life, in the middle of all the stresses. Create boundaries of space (where you won’t be interrupted) and boundaries of time (periods when you don’t have to do anything other than let your mind wander).

 You can see a ten-minute version on video here.

Writer's block? Cut and combine to start a flow.

In a Suite 101 interview with Michael Jung, Alethea Eason, author of the middle-school novel Hunger and more than a dozen children's short stories, had these suggestions for what to do when the writing isn't flowing:

"Put anything on paper to begin. Scribble and write about the story of your scribbles. Cut up an email, a class assignment, a diary entry and paste it together randomly. Type it over. Is there a place where the words grab your attention, even if they don’t make sense? Go with them and see where they lead you."

Another strange but fun method I've used from time to time: grab a novel randomly from your shelf. Write down the first sentence. Then grab a second novel and look at the first sentence of that one. Now write as little linking material as possible to connect the two with some kind of logic. Here's a example (yes, I'm worried now because I really did pick these two randomly)...

first sentence of "As Far As You Can Go," by Lesley Glaister: "The lift is lined with mirrors, with many Cassies." First sentence of "Gideon" by Russell Andrews: "Once again he woke up screaming." Whew, those are not too tough, are they? Something like: "The lift is lined with mirrors, with many Cassies. They all turn to him, they smile, and they produce a knife from their purses.... Once again, he woke up screaming." (I'm sure you can do better--give it a try!) Of course the point isn't to come up with great writing, it's just to get your reluctant brain working.

(Every month you can get fresh tips on how to be more creative, by subscribing to my free Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

Lynda Barry on Creativity & the monkey driving the car

Sean Rogers did a great free-association-tinged interview with cartoonist and writer Lynda Barry in his comics blog in “The Walrus” magazine about her book “What It Is.” The book is full of collages, writing and art prompts, and all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. Here's what she says about being creative:

“One of the writers I heard the other day said he didn’t think there was any such thing as artistic genius, which is exactly how I feel. And I do feel that art is as integral to human experience as our autonomic nervous system. I think I said, it’s like saying somebody has a talent for saliva production. You’re a genius at producing saliva! Or man, can you grow hair! “He’s brilliant!” But I do think the converse is true. I do think people can be talked out of it, or shocked out of it. It’s amazing to me how frightened people are of making their own art. Terrified.”

 I also love the image of she has of the relationship between her conscious and unconscious mind:

 “I have this image of a monkey that’s usually driving the car—I’m locked in the trunk and the monkey smoking the cigar is driving. That’s my unconscious.”

(If you want to free your creativity, subscribe to my free monthly Brainstorm creativity and productivity e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

Pitching: learning how from another Dragon's Den

At the Edinburgh International Television Festival the Guardian hosted a “Dragon’s Den” for producers pitching their comedy and entertainment ideas to commissioners from ITV. BBC3, Sky1, 2 & 3 and MTV. The one-hour video shows four producers doing their pitches, the judges’ comments, and a finale in which each judge decides whether and how to invest the £5000 they have been allocated for this session.

 This is a great chance to see some real-life pitching and to learn some things to do and not to do. The “not to do” that you’ll see well-illustrated:

• Don’t punctuate your pitch every fifteen seconds with the word “OK”
• If you have a joke slide that doesn’t get a reaction, don’t point out that it was a joke
• If the budget is important (and it usually is), don’t show up without any concept of how much your project will cost
• If you’re talking into a microphone on a stand, stop talking when you bend down to pick up things on the floor or turn away to point to something

 The things that did work:

• Use visuals to illustrate your points
• Present with passion
• Use guerrilla tactics when necessary (a great example is mentioned in the second pitch)

 It’s also instructive to pay attention to the kinds of questions that come up after the pitch—naturally your goal is to anticipate the tough questions and build the answers into your pitch. There is another pitching session video, this one for factual entertainment. I found the video player on this site a bit temperamental, but give it a try here (click on the last dot in the little column of dots to the right of the big screen that comes up and you'll see the two Dragons videos listed.)

What's next for crime fiction?

Jason Boog for MediaBistro interviewed top crime writer Patricia Cornwell on crime writing. The forensics-oriented novel is not a genre that I follow, but I was interested to hear her talk about the new direction in which she’s taking her Kay Scarpetta novels. You can watch the exclusive 3-minute clip here.

A new format for book reviews & a writer superstar

Here's a new format—the comic strip book review. It’s cartoonist Ward Sutton, reviewing Philip Roth’s 25^th novel, “Indignation.” Seems a little jumpy to me, but fun. You can see it in this Village Voice slideshow (click here).

 And here's another unusual idea: the writer as superstar. Malcolm Gladwell recently appeared at the Soho Theatre in London and sold out two performances of a talk about his work, especially his new book, "Outliers." (I just got it, haven't read it yet, but will give you a short review when I have.) The ticket price was £25 (between $35 and $50, depending on the wildly fluctuating exchange rate). According to New York magazine, Gladwell was paid $80,000 recently to address a dental-supply firm's Annual General Meeting (no wonder our fillings cost so much...).