Writing

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

Haruki Murakami on how our challenges shape us:

"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

Sourc... See more

The best storyteller in the world, Matthew Dicks, on the principle of but and therefore:

“A clear majority of human beings tend to connect their sentences, paragraphs, and scenes together with the word and.

This is a mistake. The ideal connective tissue in any story are the words but and therefore, along with all their glorious synonyms. These buts... See more

No more waiting to be asked, no more apprenticeships, no more asking for approval. Those who recognise your truth and are ready will find you - they will sense the new template . We have the technology to seed our ideas to millions of people.

The biggest regret millionaires hold?

Sacrificing their non-negotiables for success.

Humans are 6x more loss-averse than reward-driven.

Don't only think about your goals.

Also, create "anti-goals" for what you don't want.

Something isn't clickbait if you deliver.

And it's especially not clickbait if you take your audience on a journey where they discover something extremely useful.

I’ve found this a remarkably useful practice in the early stages of drafting, because it reverses the usual order of things. Instead of holding back from writing until you know what you want to say – which leads to a vicious circle of stopping, deleting, and rewriting everything a hundred times – the commitment to keeping moving means you just... See more

Make the default timeframe of any goal 5 years.

Then ask yourself: “Now, do I still really want this goal?” If yes, then proceed.

“Being a writer is the best way I know how to get paid for being insane.” This 4-minute speech by author Fredrik Backman on “creative anxiety and procrastination” made me laugh.