Latest / The Daily Writer / Put One Word After Another

Transcript

Put One Word After Another · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider, where we share a lesson each day to help you cultivate the habits for creative success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: One of the tropes that seems to follow creative types around is the myth of the quote-unquote tortured artist.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And 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.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this tortured artist myth has been used to describe why so many creative types are depressed or otherwise just kind of messed up.
• 0:41
  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.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: But where does this myth come from?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't have time for a long history lesson here, but here's one explanation for why creative types, including writers, like to perpetuate this myth.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: The reason is because we want to believe the work is hard.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We like the idea that the creative work we're doing is extraordinarily difficult.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what if we took the opposite approach?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: What if we assumed that writing is fun, it's easy, and it's enjoyable?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Creativity experts often talk about getting into a state of flow, 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 even noticing it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's pretty hard to get into a state of flow if we're constantly believing that our writing feels like torture.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, writing can be challenging, but it doesn't have to feel like hard work.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: As Neil Gaiman said, this is how you do it.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's that easy and that hard.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time you write, assume that you're going to have a great time doing your work.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Assume that it will be easy but challenging.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: You might even find yourself getting into a state of flow as you put one word after another.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take a moment to let you know about our daily writer membership community.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the very best ways to develop better habits and impact more people's lives with your writing is to spend time around other successful writers.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're tired of feeling isolated and chasing success on your own, then I know you're going to love the Daily Writer community.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: For years, I searched for the kind of writing community that I would want to join, but I can never find what I wanted, so I created my own.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the features include weekly writing sprints, monthly community calls, book discussions, calls with guest experts, and much more.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: For more info, you can visit dailywriterlife.comslash community.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.