The Practice

if you and I are exchanging our best work, our best work gets better. Abundance multiplies. Scarcity subtracts. A vibrant culture creates more than it takes.

Turning on lights, opening doors, and helping us not only connect to our better nature, but to one another.

Desirable difficulty is the hard work of doing hard work. Setting ourselves up for things that cause a struggle, because we know that after the struggle, we’ll be at a new level. Learning almost always involves incompetence. Shortly before we get to the next level, we realize that we’re not yet at that level and we feel insufficient. The difficulty

We don’t write because we feel like it. We feel like it because we write.

Write more. Write about your audience, your craft, your challenges. Write about the trade-offs, the industry, and your genre. Write about your dreams and your fears. Write about what’s funny and what’s not. Write to clarify. Write to challenge yourself. Write on a regular schedule. Writing isn’t the same as talking, because writing is organized and

Isaac Asimov published more than four hundred books. How did he possibly pull that off? Asimov woke up every morning, sat in front of his manual typewriter, and he typed. That was his job, to type. The stories he created, the robots and the rest, were the bonus that came along for the ride. He typed when he wasn’t inspired. The typing turned into w

Anchors can drag us down. That’s their job on a boat. But for a creative person, an anchor can also be a beacon, the thing we work toward, relentlessly. Not because it’s perfect. But because it’s 11:30. We promised. The process, not the outcome. That’s the heart of our practice. Good process leads to good outcomes.

The word “peculiar” comes from the idea of private property. Your cattle, to be specific. No one gets to control your livestock other than you. It’s private property. No property is more private than your voice. Your dreams and fears and contributions are yours—peculiar to you, idiosyncratic.

If we choose to do work for generous reasons, and not for reciprocity or a long con but simply because we can, we stop believing that we are owed by others. The feeling of being owed will destroy our ability to do generous work. If the audience delivers a standing ovation because they’re supposed to, it’s hardly worth listening to or remembering. T