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Transcript

Put One Word After Another · The Daily Writer

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: These lessons are inspired by great artists, authors, and thinkers, both past and present.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: One of the tropes that seems to follow creative types around is the myth of the tortured artist.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: The myth goes something like this: Creative work is very, very difficult and it requires the artist to give their blood, sweat, and tears to their creative work.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this tortured artist myth has been used to describe why so many creative types are depressed or otherwise just really messed up.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the number of popular musical artists from the 1970s and 80s who died from a drug overdose, it almost seems to be a real phenomenon that great artists are indeed tortured souls.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But where does this myth come from?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't have time for a long history lesson here today, but here's one explanation for why creative types, including writers, like to perpetuate this myth.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The reason is because we want to believe the work is hard.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We love the idea that the creative work we're doing is extraordinarily difficult.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what if we took the opposite approach?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: What if we assumed that writing is fun, easy, and enjoyable?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Creativity experts often talk about getting into a state of flow, which is a mental state where we let our subconscious creative mind take over and we're so focused and lost in our work that time seems to speed up, and hours go by without us ever noticing.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's hard to get into a state of flow if we're constantly believing that our writing feels like torture.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, writing can be challenging, but it doesn't have to feel like hard work.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: As Neil Gaiman said, this is how you do it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's that easy and that hard.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time you write, assume that you'll have a great time doing your work.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Assume that it will be easy but still challenging.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you might even find yourself getting into a state of flow as you put one word after another.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate your support and hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more at dailywriterlife.com.