Writing
# thought leadership
What if every article was a mini enterprise?
It has
A dream
An anti vision
Vision
Purpose
Mission
A system for “fulfillment”
A system for distribution (“client acquisition “)
# blockbuster content
Michael Simmons original blockbuster content idea was about him spending 10s of hours on every article. What if i did the same. Walking, listening to audiobooks, taking notes. Then connect them in sublime or obsidian canvas. Then have ai write.
In college I learned an exercise that drastically improved my writing skills. Writers call the practice E-prime.
To write in e-prime, simply omit any version of the word “to be” from your prose. Drop is, am, are, were, or was, and also their cousins — the isn’ts, the will-bes, the would-have-been, could-have-been, should-have-beens — scrap them all.
Simple, right?
Not really. Writing in e-prime hurts like a donkey kick to the frontal cortex. But it works; you find yourself thinking constantly about how to replace passive be-type language with more active, verby sentences that haul major freight. Active prose front-loads your writing and gives it a satisfying “oomph.”
Your characters come into greater focus when you describe them using their actions. If I say John was wicked that could mean any old thing. If I say John shot the deer twice, once to kill it, and once because it made him smile, you feel John’s wickedness down in your stomach, and worry.
Ideas related to this collection