Wanna bet?

In his book Steal Like an Artist (read it, and its companion piece Show Your Work, as fast as you can), Austin Kleon writes about what he calls the creativity in subtraction:

"Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 different words, so his editor bet him he couldn't write a book with only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss came back and won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, one of the bestselling children's books of all time."

One of my favorite lyricists, the great Lorenz Hart, wrote his song "I Could Write a Book" on a dare, too. Some fool at a dinner party bet him that he couldn't rhyme "bookends." Check out the link to see how he did it.

A bet can be a great motivator. Set a goal—whether it's to use a certain structure in your next creative endeavor or to stretch your comfort zone in a specific way—and make a bet with yourself, or a friend. You never know what brilliance you'll unleash.

Things I don't believe in

I don't believe in Bigfoot. Or that thing in Loch Ness. I don't believe in monsters under the bed (any fan of Pixar movies knows they come from the closet). And I don't believe in writer's block.

Probably half the people reading right now think I've just set myself up for something horrible. Like the scantily clad sorority girl in the slasher movies who barges into the deserted building with a blithe, "Nothing to worry about in here." Famous last words.

That's not to say I haven't put in my time staring at a blank computer screen. Or praying, like Salieri in Amadeus, for inspiration to strike NOW. Of course I have; I'm human.

But I don't call that "writer's block." I call it working.

Give it a label and you pathologize the behavior. It's not a disease; it's part of the process.

Writers need to think before we create. We need to synthesize ideas, macerate them so the flavors meld and create something new. Sometimes that process takes more time than we'd like. I've come to realize that if I can't think of an idea on a topic I'm supposed to be writing about, it means I probably don't have enough information. Time for more research.

Okay, it's not exactly as smooth as that sentence made it sound. "I've come to realize"—yes, but do I always remember that "I've come to realize"? Or do I spend a few frustrating hours trying to pound a square peg into a nonexistent hole before I identify what's going on? You might think I'd get better at doing this—or at least faster—after 25 years as a professional writer. (Well, you might not think that. But I do.)

Even if I'm not always quick enough to recognize and jump over the hurdle, I still understand that's all it is—a hurdle. It's not a disease, not a psychopath waiting to rob me of my ability to write. It's a process.

Don't make the fear stronger by feeding it. Walk away, clear your head, write something else. And if you must name something, name the glorious feeling of your fingers flying over the keyboard: the Write Stuff.

When s'more is less: Fewer messages = greater impact

The new owners of the house behind my friend's house tore up their entire backyard. Out with the grass. In with a blond stone patio; a giant, gas-fed fire pit; an L-shaped bar; a cinderblock wall clad (like the bar) in more blond stones; and, at either end of said wall, a stone bowl with a turquoise glaze inside.

Bird baths? Fountains? Nope. Two more gas fire pits.

No waiting for s'mores at this house!

This phenomenon crops up a lot in the world of business writing. Department A has its content in the article, so Departments B through Z need equal time. No—no, they don't.

In communications, more is not better. Assuming, that is, that your goal is to say something.

One message can be heard and remembered. Throw two messages at the audience—whether it's in writing or in a speech—and you may have a shot that one of them will stick. Add any more messages and it stops being a communication and becomes an exercise in self-congratulation.

Now, I know we could all use more exercise. But if your job is to create messages, you've got an obligation—to the company that hired you and to your own self-esteem as a writer—to convey those messages as clearly as you can. And to make sure they don't drown in a tsunami of extraneous information.

We did a little neighbor-watching this weekend. And guess what? No one even looked at the other two fires. Turns out that backyard fire pits are like corporate messages: one really awesome one is all you need.

[ ... ]

THIS SPACE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK.

(Go relax!)

I scream. You...?

After working six-day weeks for the last few months, I took last weekend off. And, dammit, I'm unplugging some this weekend too. It's a three-day weekend here in the U.S.—I deserve to rest for at least two of those days.

Now, I suggest you stop reading blogs and go eat some ice cream. I can personally vouch for the selections in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Working as fast as I can on the rest.

The more things change...

Memorial Day 2002, about a decade into my freelance career. Apparently I had trouble unplugging.

Paradise Post

I'm on vacation this week. Vacation, in the world of the freelancer, means doing about the same amount of work that you'd normally do, but with a nicer view.

And so it is with me. I've got the scut work, the writing work, and the volunteer work, which I volunteered to do this week because, after all, I'd be on vacation. (Will I ever learn?) In between, I hope to find some time to be creative—and my dog hopes I'll find some time to walk her.

Meanwhile there's a lovely breeze...spreading the pollen around. And did I mention the nice view?

Here's wishing you the same.

The good news is I have learned.

Not working this weekend...not after today, anyway. That means two days off with the spousal unit: different spouse, different dog, same view. Happy official start of summer, everyone.

The love of bad ideas

Good ideas don't spring to life fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. They slip into the world incognito, often disguised as bad ideas.

Being afraid of having a bad idea is the surest way to shut off the flow of ideas altogether. So I welcome them.

I learned this lesson very early in my career. The Berlin Wall had fallen, Eastern European countries were exploring democracy and capitalism, and my guy had to speak about it. Every day, it seemed, saw the birth of a new nation. Aha!

"Birth is messy and bloody," I wrote. Then my fingers froze in midair. What are you thinking? (I thought.) This guy is a big, macho Wall Street exec. You're going to give him a placenta metaphor?

Ixnay on the placenta metaphor. But then what?

I stared at my computer. I stared at the walls of my cubicle. I squeezed my eyes shut real hard and snapped them open again. Nothing. Every thought in my head—every thought I would ever think for the rest of my life, apparently—was just a variation on that one, highly inappropriate, placenta metaphor.

So I gave in. I wrote the thing. I embellished it, added some (you should pardon the expression) color. I made it the placenta-iest paragraph anyone could ever imagine. Even a midwife would have said, "Enough, already!"

I printed out what I wrote and hung in on the wall in front of me. Having captured it for posterity (and my own continuing amusement in the months ahead), I deleted it from my computer.

And, whaddaya know? Getting the bad idea out of my head made room for good ones. The speech turned out just fine.

So if you can't get something out of your mind...get it out of your head. Post it or stash it in an "I Can't Believe I Tried to Write That" file. Share it with your friends over drinks. Just don't share it with your boss.

Speaking of bad ideas, here's the first title I came up with for this post:

You can learn a lot from a placenta