“In our silence, in what is unsaid, what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves because communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.”

– Harold Pinter, quoted in Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer, by J. Michael Straczynski

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“Don’t speak, I know just what you’re sayin’
So please stop explainin’
Don’t tell me ’cause it hurts, no, no, no
Don’t speak, I know what you’re thinkin’
And I don’t need your reasons
Don’t tell me ’cause it hurts.”

– No Doubt, Don’t Speak

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Sometimes writing can be diplomacy: we have the chance to negotiate with ourselves before we speak our thoughts out loud to the world.

If we feel angry or frustrated, the page offers a place to write it down, to yell at the page rather than to yell in the face of another.

The pen doesn’t make a noise.

You can say the most extreme, vile, vicious things and you don’t have to take them back because they’ve just been absorbed into neutral ground.

The page is a no man’s land between yourself and the rest of the world.

You can choose to share those words or not.

They’re not immediately accessible to others – it is an early warning mechanism, a safety valve, a safe space to let off steam.

At times I read over what has burst out of me: I feel a bit silly; and I’m grateful for the power to destroy my terrible prose.

By writing we realise that life is never so black and white as war or surrender. There’s more nuance to it.

I want to celebrate diplomacy. I want to be a diplomat rather than a general. I want to find compromise with myself, rather than force a confrontation with others.

This is an unusual love letter to a sacred art that does not need to be shared. But those words which are shared and those which are kept tight to our chest, are the same words. The same methods can serve two very different functions.

It’s nice to share the positive and burn the negative.

“[William] Blake called his sense of dedication a firm persuasion. To have a firm persuasion in our work-to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the exactly same time is one of the great triumphs of human existence.”

– David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

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“He was for something—win-win negotiation. And he was also against something—life as a zero-sum game, meaning if you win, I lose. Herbie wouldn’t want to live that way even if it were true, but it wasn’t. He came to believe just the opposite: our fates are intertwined; the only way for me to win is for you to win, too.”

Rich Cohen, The Adventures of Herbie Cohen

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Art should satisfy both the creator and the consumer.

It is best to avoid self indulgence. No-one likes to hang out with a show-off.

I care about your time. As a writer, I try to avoid extraneous sentences because, as a reader, I don’t like busy work.

It’s nice when people get to the point. Some have the rare talent for storytelling: they can take us up and around the mountain. We are grateful for the momentary discombobulation if we are in the presence of a wayfinder. They’ll get us home safely.

I possess no such ability. I struggle to tell a joke because of my own impatience to get to the punch-line.

My writing has all the structure of paint by numbers.

I don’t want to get us lost, so I keep it simple.

But if you cast your eye over my paragraphs I hope I’ve avoided the empty spaces – home to dragons and other wild beasts who devour your patience.

I try to create well placed stepping stones for you to traverse.

I care about the quality of our conversations, that’s why I am careful to invite along two others to join us.

They got us started. I’ve allowed myself to interject with some thoughts. I hope you, dear reader, feel the compulsion to respond.

We have travelled together. Not far, certainly, but via a route that neither of us have travelled on before.

Now we are safely on the other side, I hope the trip has been worth it.

Would you like to turn around and have another go?

“Bliss—a second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. But ride these waves out and it will feel like finally getting a drink of water after many days in the desert.”

– David Foster Wallace, quoted in Silence by Erling Kagge.

__________

“Before I could finish my words of caution, Tom [Cruise] grabbed Ken’s shoulder in one hand and mine in the other, and practically shouted in our faces: “DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE GET TO DO TODAY?!!! Ken yelled back without hesitation: WE GET TO MAKE… A… MOVIE!” I couldn’t help but grin. Their childlike joy was unalloyed and infectious.”

– Ed Zwick, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions

__________

By deciding on our own work, I believe we circumvent boredom.

If I am bored when writing, it means I am not writing what I want to write but what I think I should be writing.

Because I have the freedom and means to write and publish every day I remind myself to share gratitude for the opportunity.

There are other realities I could be forced to live which do not include writing.

Not being free to express myself is the route of boredom.

By writing, I am never excluded from the conversation.

I can blurt out whatever comes to mind. Make up a new game to play. Every day I enter this space of childish things.

I can come back later as a serious adult and correct some my mistakes. But the spirit of the kindergarten remains.

Excitement and joy

Know what I get to do today?!!! I get to make a blog!

And do you know what I get to do tomorrow?!!! I get to make a blog!

And the day after?!!!… you get my drift.

I am grateful for this privileged position.

For writing, my mantra will be: less force, more joy.

Would you like to come along for the ride? It’s more fun together…

“We need always to separate the problem of virtue from the problem of lack of control.”

– Jim Harrison, Off to the Side

__________

“Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing.”

– John McPhee, Draft No. 4

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Manifestos and grand proclamations are best self directed.

Prescriptions are personal and who do we know better than ourselves?

My focus is on creating systems, rather than lofty goals.

It’s a change of habit rather than a change in principles.

If I wish to change a behaviour it’s simpler if I detach from that behaviour any moral judgement.

And how do I know what needs to change?

By writing. The pen doesn’t lie if you use it enough.

By repeatedly asking questions the truth emerges: writing is a gentle self-interrogation.

Eventually I find out what I want, or don’t want.

Along the way I hope to discover who I am. But I acknowledge this is the task of a lifetime, not to be found in a single line.

If I err in my daily systems I am training myself to resist the reaction of blame. Rather it is sensible to recognise that what makes us human is our fallibility.

Perfection is for machines. I am content moving in this organic, haphazard way.

Question and answer. Step and falter. Proud and bowed. Fast and slow. Up and down. Smile and frown.

I put down the plan and create a map instead, by studying my fading steps to the present.

There is no straight line to the self.

“Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. Few of us can learn this without making mistakes, without trying to become a little more of a universal man than we are permitted to be. It is during this period that a writer can most easily be led astray by another writer or by some ideology. When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, “I know what I like,” he is really saying “I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu,” because, between twenty and forty, the surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it. After forty, if we have not lost our authentic selves altogether, pleasure can again become what it was when we were children, the proper guide to what we should read.”

W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand

__________

“You will be surprised how much your ideas improve as you grow older. The ability to draw is not the only ability which improves with time. The ability to create ideas improves as you yourself mature.”

Charles M. Schulz, My Life With Charlie Brown

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It’s a relief not to pretend: to have total disinterest in impressing others.

The greatest satisfaction of being 40 is the focus on getting closer to me.

I kinda know what I like now. That means the rest of the universe of noise can just fall away as I gather around me what is truly interesting.

By saying no to most of what is being made, published, marketed, sold, spoken, sung, suggested and shouted I can turn to the production of my own ideas.

This has not abated my curiosity. Rather, I am careful to curate what passes my way and have greater confidence in seeking out new threads to pull.

I am starting to think of this as consuming with intention. It is not switching on the TV or booting up social media to step straight into browse mode.

It’s more of a long amble, where I stop and look at what catches my eye.

I curate at walking pace rather than in hyperspace.

I might let most of the world pass me by, but I am meticulous in paying attention to and recording my own streaming subconscious.

I am building my own world of ideas.

I do not dine alone. Every day, two illustrious guests join me.

I like the idea of Wystan Auden and Charles Schultz sitting at my kitchen table eating, drinking and sharing stories.

As the host I’d be content to sit back and smile. Trying not to interrupt as they converse, I would bask in the brightness of their ideas.

Thank god for books.

Auden and Schultz are both immortal: they can be summoned with the simple turning of the page.

“Our imaginations—whether driven by fiction or our own thoughts—have the same power as real experiences when it comes to rewiring our brains. You already know a dramatic experience in the real world can instantly rewire your brain to make you forever fear or love something that reminds you of that experience. But imagination—including reframing—can also rewire your brain over time. You simply need to focus and repeat the reframe in your head long enough for the hack to work.”

– Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain

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“Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God, it is that. He dared to imagine everything.”

– Henry Miller, Sexus, quoted in Writing From the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo

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Reading a wide range of books is akin to seeking several quotes for a job.

I want to ensure good work at a fair price.

The job? A rewiring job – the creation of my self, my place in the world, my imagination fortified.

It’s a big job that will require several subcontractors.

Who do I allow to be the architect of this project?

If someone is religious, perhaps that job is taken by a god or a religious book

Others may look for a guru – that one person who seemingly has all the answers to their problems.

But I have chosen the messy self construction route.

I am trying to figure out the job as I go.

I consult various guides and how-tos, but ultimately, this building has my intials on the plans.

It is hard work doing it myself. Surely it would be easier if I had someone else to do my thinking for me?

But I have the satisfaction of seeing my handiwork.

I can, crucially, wield a sledgehammer if I need a do over.

Sometimes that is the easiest and most satisfying job.

Books are my guides. I am auto didactic, I learn best with self directed study.

One book leads to me the next. Often they concur with my worldview, others change my mind.

What I have is autonomy in learning. I take the raw materials of others to mix in my imagination and create new ideas.

“Think it not enough to furnish this Store-house of the Mind with good Thoughts, but lay them up there in Order, digested or ranged under proper Subjects or Classes. That whatever Subject you have Occasion to think or talk upon you may have recourse immediately to a good Thought, which you heretofore laid up there under that Subject. So that the very Mention of the Subject may bring the Thought to hand; by which means you will carry a regular Common Place-Book in your Memory.”

John Mason (written in 1745), as quoted in Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

__________

“I had already figured out the core lesson of being a journalist—read before you write.”

– Seymour Hersh, Reporter: A Memoir

__________

I am grateful that I do not need to create my own individual systems for collecting and storing interesting ideas.

All my reading (via Kindle) passes through the filter of Readwise.

All my highlights are captured, stored and are automatically organised and searchable.

I don’t have to lift a finger. Well one finger, to tap on the search bar.

I simply read, highlight, annotate. Readwise takes care of all the admin.

A beautiful system.

Thankyou Readwise for automatically making me a super organised reader.

How many hours has this saved me?

Or a more important question is: would I even bother to organise my notes without Readwise?

The evidence of a lifetime of sparsely used notebooks says no.

So this one app has transformed me from a prolific, yet disorganised, reader into a super organised reader with access to over 10,000 (and counting!) ideas I have found in books.

My own private coomonplace book, library, encyclopaedia.

This post was made possible by Readwise making instantly available my highlight of the opening quote found in Steven Johnson’s excellent book.

I read so that I can write.

Sometimes I need a little help remembering what I have read.

All writing is my own.

“Every five-page scene I write I try to cut to four, every fourpage scene to three, every three to two… tighter is better always.

A screenplay functions as a blueprint, engineering report, and rendering all at the same time. It must work for the director, the producer, the actors AND the financier.

That’s the challenge.

– Ron Shelton, in Riding the Alligator by Pen Densham

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“It would be a writing course. Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.

I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.

Each step requires asking “What’s really important?” That’s the most important question you can ask yourself about anything. The class would really be about answering that very question at each step of the way. Whittling it all down until all that’s left is the point.”

– Jason Fried, The Writing Class I’d Like to Teach

__________

Killing my darlings.

It’s energising.

I’m showing the universe that I do not need to cling to the past.

I am proving with every edit my confidence to create more in the future.

I do not need to hoard words.

I can go out colllecting more sentences.

If I worry that I’m wasting words by deleting them then I am signalling to myself that what I have written is the best that I can do.

I prefer to think that what I write next will be more interesting.

I edit the past. Make my point, then move on.

“I know myself well enough to know that whatever happens, it won’t be my excesses I’ll regret, it’ll be the things I held myself back from doing. In all my life I’ve never yet given a present so lavish, or made a gesture so expansive, or indulged a pleasure so recklessly that I regretted it later. Whereas there are so many things I look back on now and think: That was one of the high points, that moment will never come again, why did I hold back?”

– Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

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“I remember
10 years ago in Hollywood
We did some good
And we did some real bad stuff
But the Butt-hole Surfers said
It’s better to regret something you did
Than something you didn’t do”

– Red Hot Chili Peppers, Deep Kick

__________

The regrets of omission always feel worse.

It’s because we lost something.

An opportunity, or a connection.

Psychologists say that we experience a loss greater than a gain.

By doing something we later regret we still gain the experience itself, which can be something to learn from.

By not doing something, there is no learning except, perhaps, of our own timidity.

Easier said than done. And of course, far easier in retrospect.

We never know what we choose to do will be a regret, or one of life’s singular experiences.

The only way of knowing is to do.

“The pattern of the thing precedes the thing. I fill in the gaps of the crossword at any spot I happen to choose. These bits I write on index cards until the novel is done. My schedule is flexible, but I am rather particular about my instruments: lined Bristol cards and well sharpened, not too hard, pencils capped with erasers.”

– Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40, The Paris Review

__________

“What I did for this particular outline was something I’d learned to do in technical writing, and that was to put down each idea on individual slips of paper and then compare them and see which went first. So my outline was always in a series of slips that went on, one after another.

I was just putting down these slips and comparing them. But this particular form gave me the advantage of being able to expand in the middle, of being able to reorganize at any time, so I had a flexible outline that could grow as my understanding of the story grew. I was never limited. I was free to throw away where I had been and restart again, over and over again, with what was coming in new.

And I’m sure that in any creative project you really can’t perceive what the end is going to be, unless it is a very small thing you’re doing. I think the advantage of this particular device was that it always kept me open, it always kept me flexible, it always gave me a kind of a hollowness, so that I could constantly be refilled with new things that were coming in.”

– Robert Pirsig, On Quality

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What freedom: to start a story wherever you like. To write a fragment here, another there.

I love scheduling my writing for the same time every day, but I don’t want to be told what to write on any given day, even if the telling is by me.

For a writer whose output is random blog posts, Nabokov and Pirsig give me hope that my work could be corralled into a unifying theme one day.

But more than that, I feel the flexibility to write about whatever has captured my attention.

There is no pressure to conform.

I have dozens of fragments saved as drafts, waiting for the right guests to join me for a chat.

I read On Quality in January. I always knew it would be paired with Nabakov but I was unsure where I could find a quote of him talking about his notecards.

A newsletter today from The Paris Review revealed what I had been looking for.

Two authors united in conversation by me.

This is what I love to do.