We need to find the minimum viable scaffolding to get our work started and then focus on doing the work from there, making little adjustments as we go. ... Every minute we spend looking for The Right Tool is a minute we’re not using our perfectly good word processor to bang out the next great American novel.

Don't Put the Tool Before the Craft: Brea... See more

If you lose momentum or want to be prolific, go to the city. But if your thinking feels stale or you want to work on longer-form pieces, consider a retreat to the country.

David Perell 5.23.2022

My homework for life is a little blurb about the most story-worthy moment of my day.

his experimental mixing of Wordsworth's Tables Turned with Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky is a joy to behold.

I don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions. —Lucille Clifton

lean into macro challenges while finding the easiest way to manage micro challenges. The hour-by-hour challenge of continuing to write is less important than the month-by-month challenge of continuing to write.

Nat Eliason 6.6.2022

1. Fragmentary style of writing for different purposes:

Pascal to underscore that total and complete knowledge is God’s alone.

Nietzsche to underscore human perspectivalism.

Others to emulate the ancients (or rather their surviving linguistic ruins.)

Kabballah to emphasize the task of the righteous to collect and reassemble these fragments of God.

2. Ma... See more

I never start a new project without "building blocks."

The first thing I do when I sit down to work is looking for what I already have that can help me complete my project. This might be research, meeting notes, a voice recording of a call, screenshots, templates, quotes...you get the point.

There's always something I can use.

So here's my challenge f... See more

Reading Blackmore’s celebration of Gibbons’ carvings, you leave behind what you thought were the subtle distinctions between different things. You celebrate the dissolution of categories and the emergence of more hybrid kinds of creatures.

“Literary Invention in the Age of Disorder” Wolfram Schmidgen Spring,2022