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It Can’t Be Done… or Can It? · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to this episode of the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody gave you an assignment to write a sentence without the letter E, how would you respond?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Would you think it's too difficult, or would you think that it can't be done?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: What about writing a whole paragraph, a whole scene, or even a whole book chapter without the letter E?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: What about ultimately writing an entire book without the letter E?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds impossible, doesn't it?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: After all, the letter E is the most common letter in the English language.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: How could you possibly write a whole book without the letter E?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It simply can't be done.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's what people kept telling a writer named Ernest Vincent Wright in the early years of the 20th century.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: He got so tired of hearing people tell him it couldn't be done that he decided to prove them wrong.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the result was a 50,000-word novel called Gadsby, which in fact doesn't contain the letter E.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to accomplish this crazy feat, he had to tie down the letter E on his typewriter so he couldn't use it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yet he still met his goal.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as you can imagine, a whole novel with the letter E is fairly clunky to read, but you've got to respect Mr.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wright's determination and persistence in the face of everybody telling him that it could not be done.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time you have a big writing goal and people keep telling you all the reasons that you can't do it, why you're gonna fail, or how they tried something once and failed, remember good old Mr.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Wright banging away at his typewriter with the letter E tied down.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, unfortunately, Mr.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wright died in 1939, the same year that his novel was published, so he didn't get to enjoy his success for very long, but he died knowing that he reached his goal, which is not a bad way to go.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's today's question What goal do you have that others doubt can be done?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Does it motivate you to prove them wrong?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.