Posts Tagged ‘writing’
How do you become who you want to be? Dare to be bad.
Inside your head, there’s a version of you who’s killing it.
That you is working steadily on the novel, the blog, the film, the podcast, the comic, the website. Alternate-you is publishing, going live. And the world is loving it.
But on the outside? You’re barely moving.
You’ve got to take the next step.
“This happened, then this happened, then…” Create suspense in your storytelling
Whenever there’s a sequence of events—this happened, then that happened, then this happened—we inevitably want to find out what happened next.
Also—and this is key—this banal sequence has raised a question, namely, What’s the guy saying? And you’ll probably stick around ‘til you find out.
Read MoreGrab your audience’s attention with the XY Story Formula
What will make your audience unable to resist diving into your story?
Read MoreWhere do you get your ideas from? Notice what you notice.
The best stories come from people following their taste, diving into something that inspires them. Your taste matters.
And how do you know what your taste actually is? You have to listen to yourself, pay attention to what excites you, what you talk about.
Which idea is keeping you up at night thinking about it?
Which idea are you telling your friends about?
And then invest in it: invest your time and your attention.
Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
Drawing Words and Writing Pictures
The alchemical art of combining words and pictures to make comics: go in with nothing, and come out with a finished comic in just 15 chapters.
Read MoreIdea Debt: You probably have it (and how to ‘cure’ it)
Idea Debt is when you spend too much time picturing what a project is going to be like, too much time thinking about how awesome it will be to have this thing done and in the world, too much time imagining how cool you will look, how in demand you’ll be, how much money you’ll make. And way too little time actually making the thing.
Read MoreFeel the burn.
Get better at helping others make their work shine. It’s a wonderful gift to give another storyteller. But it’s not all altruism: every time you work through a story, you learn more about your own work, and how to improve it.
Read MoreFeeling Stuck on a Project?Escape from the Dark Forest!
Don’t let luck control whether you actually create your work or not. When the Dark Forest has closed in, escape with a Focus Session.
Read MoreOpen the Black Box to put an end to procrastination
The number one thing I see as standing in the way of getting the creative projects we want to be making actually made is procrastination. And when we procrastinate, we beat up on ourselves, which only makes it worse. We tell ourselves that procrastination as a character flaw. like, “oh I’m just a procrastinator.”
But procrastination is not about your character. It’s the manifestation of anxiety.
Read MoreYou need to know when to say NO (and when to say HELL YEAH!)
You want to make creative work. You can’t shake that desire, but maybe you also can’t figure out how to make it happen in your already-packed life. Maybe you imagine that someone like me, who gets a lot of stuff done, that I have a simpler life, somehow. I wish.
I wish.
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