• At times our minds add uncalled-for complexity to situations. • If you’ve thought yourself into a corner and are stuck, free-write about the situation by listing everything in it that’s obvious. Put down simple facts. They have a way of cutting through the fog.

Take seven minutes, and talk about the opportunity. Don’t, however, talk in your normal calm, measured way. Instead, speak as rapidly as you can, don’t stop except to catch your breath, and hold nothing back. Essentially, you’re having a freewriting conversation.

Focus-changers have endless numbers or forms. Here’s a partial list of some helpful ones: • How can I make this exciting? • How can I add value? • What else can I say about this subject? • Why am I stuck at this particular point? • How can I get unstuck? • What am I missing here? • What am I wrong about here? • Why? • How can I prove that? • How

Elbow, Peter. Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. p. 336.

When Bellman first sits down to write, he uses the time to learn what he’s thinking about without having to explain himself to other people. He doesn’t want to use the page as a means of persuading others, making money, or making himself famous. When they are addressed too early, he sees those factors as corrupting forces. They get in the way of

That’s the marathon. You do twenty-minute sessions, punctuated by the search for starter thoughts, over and over for as long as you can take it. Two hours is good. Six to seven hours is preferable. Why?

A talking document is a problem-solving document. It shows where your mind is headed without fully committing to anything. You’re not showing off, and you need no definite answers. The document is easy to create.

But you don’t often make ideas better by complicating them. At times we fall prey to our own smarts. We trap ourselves with notions that sound good but don’t work in practice. So how do you escape your own intelligence? I follow the advice of Ken Macrorie. Rather than “trying to be lucky with a Great Idea,” he said, “reach for a fact.”

When I asked Steely what makes for a superior prompt, she gave the following advice: “Make your prompts short and open-ended. For instance, ‘After the storm …’ is a good one. It’s only a few words, and it could be about a childhood rainstorm, a thunderstorm, a fight, or it could have nothing to do at all with storms.”