Michael Brooks

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you

... See more

Remember this for whenever you design something. https://t.co/pdZrYP87uR

To make an article more inviting, gently:

• Divide sections using subtitles


• Vary paragraph length


• Vary the tone with asides and snappers


• Use interstitials (quotes, statistics, images)

Here are some other techniques people use to access and maintain the zone:

• Introducing a long delay between when you do the work and when it is shown to the world. Annie Ernaux writes about this in A Simple Passion, a memoir about how she becomes obsessed in a banal way with a man who is having an affair with her—the thought that others will read

... See more

“Sometimes life feels a certain way that we call “absurd”: nothing matters, all efforts are for naught, everything seems random and perverse, positive intention is perpetually thwarted. This stance communicates darkness and edginess, which can feel like wisdom. But we don’t live as if life is absurd; we live as if it has meaning and makes sense. We

... See more