1. Write what you know about, run into, have a passion for and obsess over. Do this, and I promise you two things: (1) You will never run out of material, (2) Writing will be easy. Otherwise your work is going to be boring to write and laborious to read. Zoinks! What percentage of your writing is infused with your passion?

2. Writer’s Block is a lie. Doesn’t exist. It’s nothing by comfy little excuse touted by undisciplined, mediocre writers who sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. Here’s the reality: Writing is an extension of thinking. So, next time you experience “Writer’s Block,” recognize that what you’re really experiencing is Thinker’s Block.

Lesson learned: If you want to write more, think more. If you want to write better, think better. People who bitch about Writer’s Block are either: (1) lazy, (2) boring, (3) stupid, or (4) terrible listeners. Remember: Creativity is nothing but active listening. If you can’t find anything to write about, you’re not a writer. Period. What did you write today?

3. Writing is a little like eating. During my brother’s wedding, my parents’ friend Ed told me, “Scott, eventually you get to a point when it’s not about the food, but who’s at the table.”

Great point. And similarly, the more you learn to trust your inner voice, you care less about grammar, punctuation and structure, and the more you care about being courageous enough slice open a vein and bleed your truth all over the page.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if your writing is good – it matters if your writing is your truth. It doesn’t matter if your writing is popular – it matters if your writing disturbs people into action.

Look, you’re not going to win a Pulitzer. Let go of the need to be “good at writing.” Instead, invest your time and energy in making your pen a lightning rod for channeling honesty. People will notice. Does your writing have to be good?

4. Writing is like camping. Because you never put your ideas back the same way you found them. Your goal is to train yourself to pick up a thought or idea and then play with it until it’s bigger, better, sharper, and more useful. How much better will the literary campsite be when you’re done with it?

5. Writing makes everything you do BETTER and EASIER. Go back and read that sentence four more times. It changed my life, it changed my clients’ lives, and it will change your life, as long as you’re willing to accept it. Because that’s not an opinion. That is a truth.

Writing helps you make sense of the changes in your life. Writing helps people adopt a piece of you into their world. With the exception of Bikram Yoga, I can’t think of anything healthier in the world that writing. What does writing do for you?

6. Writing stuff down isn’t enough. You know my mantra: “If you don’t write it down, it never happened.” And that may be true. And writing (still) may be the basis of all wealth. But there’s more to it than that.

Writing is about three things: Content Generation, Content Management and Content Delivery. And if you don’t have a customized system for plucking, organizing and deploying your ideas, you lose.

As George Carlin – the master of Content Management – once said, “Good ideas don’t mean anything if you can’t find them again.” Remember: Your brain is a moron. Do you have a paper memory?

7. Yes, it IS possible to have too many ideas. Ironically, this becomes a barrier to creativity because eventually, you won’t be able to keep anything in your head straight. Sure, resisting the urge to evaluate, appraise and assign value to every idea is important during the initial creative process.

In the beginning stages, the goal is to prevent Premature Cognitive Commitment, thus keeping your options open. Eventually, however, there comes a point in the idea process where you’ve got to stop creating and start judging. Do you have too many ideas?

8. Your everyday life is what people relate to. Finally, the more specific you are, the more relatable you are. Take Dave Berry, for example. Back in his heyday of writing a syndicated humor column, his funniest pieces were the ones about mundane events like his kids, his house and his hometown.

Here’s a one-liner I just randomly Googled that proves this point: “My teenage son, Rob, says the only time he ever wraps a gift is, quote, ‘if it’s such a poor gift that I don’t want to be there when the person opens it.’”

Ha! Love it. And nobody else in the world could be so funny talking about something so boring. Think it’s a coincidence Dave won a Pulitzer? Think it’s a coincidence Dave wrote twenty bestsellers? Think it’s a coincidence Dave gets $50,000 per keynote speech? Nope. How will you leverage the ordinary in your writing to make history?

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* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Coach, Entrepreneur
[email protected]

Download a free copy of The Nametag Guy’s (unofficial) 9th book!

HELLO, my name is Scott’s…
“Live your name.”

1. Stick to your writing schedule. This forces you not to rely on inspiration. This keeps you disciplined. And this instills a blue-collar, working stiff, clocking in/clocking out mentality that MUST exist for the Muse to even consider stopping by.

The secret, according to my hero, Julia Cameron, is thinking of yourself as being “due at the page.” Same time. Every day. No matter what. Because a writer writes. Always. When are you do at the page each day?

2. Strengthen your ability to look at one thing and see something else. The foundation of creativity. The key to entrepreneurship. That’s the secret to writing. It’s called “Attribute Transferring,” which is the practice of picking out something that seems marvelously successful and ask yourself questions to find out what makes it that way.

I wrote a module called, Thank you for listening to your body that perfectly demonstrates this practice in action. Many writers do this, some writers recognize this, but almost NO writers practice getting better AT, or write ABOUT this idea like I do. I don’t mean to brag, but … well … ok … actually, I DO mean to brag about this. Cause I’m damn good at it. What attributes are you transferring?

3. There will be more. Try not to get frustrated with yourself if you walk away from three hours of writing with ONE measly sentence. It happens to me all the time. And the secret is to consider this capturing of “one true thing” a victory.

After all, sometimes you won’t even get that. In the words of Leonard Cohen, “You have to go to work everyday with the knowledge that you might not get it everyday.” So, just trust your resources that there will be more. That you will come back to that “one true thing” tomorrow, next week or next year, and round it out a little more.

Then a little more. Then a little more. And you’ll keep plugging away and thinking about that idea until some flesh comes onto those bones. And eventually, when your idea decides that it’s meaty enough, it will tell you. And you will be ready to share it with the world. Are you willing to spend half of your workday on one sentence?

4. Think on paper. Don’t just sit there mulling over things. Get your ass out of bed and go think on paper. Write it. Type it. Mind map it. Flip chart it. Whiteboard it. Doesn’t matter. The attempt to draw out an idea will automatically show up its weaknesses and complexities.

Thinking on paper will show you what’s wrong with your idea and lead you to a simple and obvious solution. What’s more, writing out your problems on paper and then drawing arrows between various elements will show you which problems result in other problems. Kind of hard to do that stuff in your head. Do you think in your head or on paper?

5. Toggle people’s brains. You do that with your questions. With your odd, unexpected juxtapositions of words. With your sentences and phrases that are so “out there” that they take people with them. As Ned Flanders once said, “Well sir, as far as melon ballers go, that’s a noodle scratcher!”

Hopefully, your readers are thinking that same idea. That you’ve rocked their worlds. Turned their brains upside down. Stretched their minds like a bar of Laffy Taffy, never quite returning to their original size. It’s part of the job description. How are you toggling people?

6. Watch yourself write. Because you weren’t looking for the formula of how you writing the first time, you need to go back and figure out what you did. What your thought processes, questions and assumptions were. That way you can perfect your process it and repeat it.

So, regularly back away from your creative journey and revisit the progression of your ideas. Here’s how:

(1) TRACK the experiences or moments that inspired your original idea
(2) THINK about the questions you asked yourself, didn’t ask yourself or should have asked yourself during the writing process
(3) NOTE each moment of resistance, how it made you feel and what steps you took to overcome it
(4) REVISIT tangible records of the progression of your idea.

Lay them all out in front of you and then travel back in time. See what comes up the second time. Perhaps a few new patterns will emerge. This process will teach you invaluable lessons about how you think, create and write. Are you stepping back from what you do to study what you do?

7. Write because you can’t (not) write. Not because of the money. Not because of the fame. Not because chicks dig writers. And not because you want to “have written.” Write because you have something that needs to be said.

Write because there is some lie you want to expose. Write because there is something you’ve gone through that people need to hear about and learn from. What must you write about or you shall die?

8. Write things that make no sense, then improve them. Remember: There will be more. Who cares if your first draft is completely wonky? What matters is that you write that “one true thing” down the moment it comes up. What matters is that you honor whatever surfaces.

And, what matters is that you trust your inner resources, having faith that the idea will make sense when you’re ready to learn it. Are you willing to write gibberish now for jackpots later?

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How will you take your business write into wealth?

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For the list called, “9 Things Every Writer Must Do Every Day,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Coach, Entrepreneur
[email protected]

Download a free copy of The Nametag Guy’s (unofficial) 9th book!

HELLO, my name is Scott’s…
“Live your name.”

1. Now that I have this, what else does this make possible? I call this “The Ultimate Leverage Question.” I ask it to myself all day, everyday. And it comes from Edward DeBono, who defines the movement value of an idea as, “The ability of one idea to lead to another.”

So, every time you finish writing ANYTHING, you need to ask yourself the following question: Now that I have this, what else does this piece of writing making possible? A new list? A new chapter? A new module? A new podcast? A new website? A new blog post? A new book idea? A new video clip? A new philosophy? A new area of study? A new niche market? A new program idea?

A new type of reader? A new marketing idea? A new level of thinking? A new product category? A new type of customer? A series of related modules? A new joint venture opportunity? A new reason to email a prospect? A new set of smaller sub-modules? A new reason to email a customer? A new dimension to your philosophy?

A new expanded version of an old idea? A new submission for a contest or award? A new domain of your existing philosophy? A new series to supplement your flagship program? Good writers leverage everything. Do you?

2. Package truth as nuggets. Thanks to the evil overlords at CNN & USA Today, we live in a soundbite society. And people are DYING for someone to cut out the crap and just give them the meat. They’re too busy, too self-involved and too inundated with information to remember anything beyond eight words.

So remember the secret: Meaningful Concrete Immediacy. Keep it relevant, compact and credible. Make it short, memorable and repeatable. Ooh! There’s a few soundbites right there. I should be a writer. Is the packaging of your words reflecting the cultural reality of your readers?

3. Personalize autobiographical elements without being self-indulgent. Remember that nobody cares about you. Remember non-brilliance is forgivable; but time wasting isn’t. And remember that if you’re going to tell a personal story, there HAS to be a tangible, practical; use-today takeaway that people can distill easily, quickly and obviously.

Yes, stories are powerful. Yes, stories beat statistics or quotes any day. And yes, stories are the most effective way to communicate any message. But without punctuating them with universal human experiences, immediately take-home value and/or calls to action, your stories will remain inherently impressive and interesting, yet obviously irrelevant and inapplicable. Why are you telling this story?

4. Publish thoughts and ideas that mountains of interpretation will accumulate around. This was a suggestion of Seth Godin, one of my favorite writers. And I think the key behind this strategy is to write about ideas in a way that leaves the readers with multiple dimensions to explore and add on to.

To approach your topic, expertise or school of thought in a Van Gough-esque, “no great work of art is ever finished” kind of way. The hard part is, this practice requires humility, editability and the willingness to accept new and different interpretations of ideas you’ve been writing about for years. Are you open to looking and your own ideas differently?

5. Render everything you experience. You are a writer. An artist. The authentic recorder and reporter of your own experience. And your job is to find the sentence that absolutely defines the moment. It’s part patience, part listening, part remembering and part capturing.

But once you find it – once you hear a sentence that hits you like a ton of books (i.e., “Writing is the basis of all wealth,” or “Action is the engine of credibility”) – that’s when your rendering process begins. And your life never quite returns to its original shape. This is the kind of thing that should be happening to you ALL day. What have you rendered this week?

6. Say what most people are already thinking, but say it better than they are thinking it. This was the suggestion of Scott Adams, another one of my favorite writers. “Most people don’t want to risk having their mind changed,” he said. I agree. And I think the challenge is to perfect your process.

For example, here’s my approach for writing about an old idea in a new, better way:

(1) SUMMARIZE IT: Trim the fat. Make it shorter
(2) DEMOCRATIZE IT: Extract the generic principle that applies cross industrial
(3) AWESOMEIZE IT: Make it stronger, more vivid and more vibrant
(4) ME-IZE IT: Put the stamp of my uniqueness on by using my branded language
(5) RHYTHM-IZE IT. Make it musical, melodious, singable, symmetrical
(6) BITE-IZE IT: Final delivery in an easily digestible and repeatable way.

How can you write about this idea better than anybody?

7. Serve your readers; don’t strut to them. That means don’t overwhelm readers with your knowledge. That means don’t overly cross sell your other services. That means don’t needlessly drop names of big-shot clients you worked with once and never talked to again.

And, most of all, that means don’t gratuitously use twenty-five cent words like “propinquity,” “cogitate,” and “pedagogy.” Nobody understands them and you DON’T sound like a professor – you sound like a poser who just discovered www.thesauraus.com. Does your writing leave a feeling of vanity or value in your readers’ minds?

8. Start with one true thing. That’s what Hemmingway did when he sat down to work. At the top of the page, he’d write ONE thing. One sentence. One phrase. One thought. One truth. And Ernest knew that if he did that, the rest would follow. The Italian term for this process is called un ligne dogne, and it’s a crucial element to becoming a great writer.

Personally, this process has opened up countless new worlds, philosophies and schools of thought for me. Sentences like “Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness,” “Don’t be stopped by not knowing how,” and “Impatience is underrated” have been a few of the un ligne dognes that I’ve written at the top of blank pages, expanded upon, and changed my whole life as a result. What one true thing could YOU start with today?

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For the list called, “9 Things Every Writer Must Do Every Day,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Coach, Entrepreneur
[email protected]

Download a free copy of The Nametag Guy’s (unofficial) 9th book!

HELLO, my name is Scott’s…
“Live your name.”

Instead, all you need to do is follow these eight practices:

1. Harmonize the influences within you. Everything you’ve ever read, seen, heard, touched, tasted, watched, experienced and learned. All of this brainstuff is your creative soil waiting to be tilled in those golden flashes of inspiration.

That’s why the art form of writing is so cool. You can’t “prepare” to write – your life IS your preparation. You’ve already done most of the work. All you have to do is listen and take really good notes. All you have to do is start with one true thing at the top of the page, and then respond with everything you’ve got.

As such, writing is more reacting that it is inventing. But only if you learn to make use of that which has already entered into your mind. What do you need to harmonize?

2. Honor your first awakening thoughts. This is the VERY first thing I do every morning when I clock into work at 5 AM. I sit down with my laptop and a nice cup of peppermint tea. And for the first thirty minutes of my day, I just start writing. No structure. No stops. No grammar or spelling checks. I just start writing.

Whatever is running through my mind at the moment. Whatever I dreamt about the night before. Whatever I thought about while I was showering in the dark. It doesn’t matter. I just puke it all out for about three pages, save the entry in a folder, recite my two-minute Writing Incantation, and then go to work.

The process is called Morning Pages, and it’s the single most important element of my professional writing practice. Learn it. What would happen to your writing if you spent the first half-hour of your day at the mental driving range, getting the shanks out?

3. Idea generation without idea execution is idea annihilation. That means you can’t just sit in your office all day and write a bunch of articles. You’ve actually got to publish it – perhaps on your blog or Twitter. You’ve got to share it – maybe by emailing it to a few colleagues.

And you’ve got to test it out – during conversation or during a presentation. Otherwise, you’ll morph into one of those crotchety, curmudgeon, has-been, armchair writers who spends all his time reading other writers’ books only to complain, “But I wrote about that idea years ago!” Yell, well, maybe so. But it’s too bad you never executed that idea, Grampa. How many of your amazing pieces will never see the light of day because you’re too lazy or too scared to publish them?

4. Infect your readers. That’s what Tolstoy practiced. “Art is infection,” he once said. Which means there’s a certain contagiousness to your work. A certain transference of emotion. And whatever the emotion, whatever the virus, it needs to ooze off (or become airborne from) the page, screen, stage, or whatever your canvas is, and seep its way into the body and soul of the reader/viewer/audience. Are you writing or infecting?

5. It’s not where you get your ideas – it’s what you do immediately when you get them. Me? I write them down. I google them for verification. I explode them into a puke list of 101 items. I expand them onto mind maps and flip chart drawings. I buy the domains of titles that I want to protect. I do Wordsmithing. I write about them some more. I release them on the testing grounds of Twitter.

I write about them some more. I add new dimensions. I share them in conversations with people who think completely differently than me so I can see the holes and flaws in my ideas. And I ask questions like, “What stories prove that this idea is true?” “How does this fit into my theory of the universe?” and “What does this have to do with my expertise?” What do you do immediately when you get your ideas?

6. Let your readers breathe. First, by varying your sentence length. Second, by decreasing your paragraph length. Third, by asking the reader questions. Fourth, by breaking the fourth wall by actually talking to your readers, making requests like: “Take a minute to reflect on this idea…” or “Pause for a moment, take a breath, then read on!”

Your readers are NOT going to do it on their own, so they need your help. Remember: The more oxygen your readers get, the more relaxed they become, the more they enjoy their reading experience, and the better they comprehend your work. Are your readers gasping for air?

7. Look into your heart and write whatever concerns you at the moment. That’s your Truth. That’s your experience. That’s what you need put on the page. So, let go of the need to label your thought as “good,” “bad,” “weird,” “insightful” or “brilliant.”

This form of premature cognitive commitment will rob your idea of its true potential. Remember: Idea appraisal is the enemy. At least in the early stages of creativity. When your heart speaks, do you take good notes?

8. Make it your responsibility to go out and find things. “Constantly cast about for new material,” George Carlin suggested. Personally, I take that piece of advice literally as a writer – I go fishing.

Idea fishing; that is. I drive to Borders, pick out about fifty books, sit down in the café, and start taking notes. Not copying. Not plagiarizing. Just reacting to what I read through the lens of my personal philosophy and theory of the universe. Then I write those reactions down, citing sources when appropriated.

Now, on a typical fishing trip, I’ll sit there for a few hours and fill up maybe TEN pages of handwritten notes. Then I’ll walk out of Borders without actually buying anything. Mainly because I’m a cheapskate, but also because Borders is overpriced and they have most of my money anyway.

Hey, I think I’ve earned my fishing trips. Besides, it’s not like I’m a total mooch – I DO buy a chocolate covered graham cracker while I’m there. Cut me some slack. Are you going out to find things?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Will you become a legendary writer?

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For the list called, “9 Things Every Writer Must Do Every Day,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Coach, Entrepreneur
[email protected]

Download a free copy of The Nametag Guy’s (unofficial) 9th book!

HELLO, my name is Scott’s…
“Live your name.”

1. Avoid adverbial garbage. Let your words speak. Don’t tell people what they’re supposed to see in your art. Don’t make your readers do your job for you. If you have to tell them, you haven’t done a good enough job with the writing itself.

For example, the man you met on the bus wasn’t “extremely attractive.” He was handsome. Or chiseled. Or had a smile like Denzel Washington. And the movie you saw last night wasn’t “amazingly dull.” It was laborious. Or uninspiring. Or made you want to gouge your eyes out with a spork.

See the difference? Adverbs are for amateurs. And the more you use them, the more your writing resembles a studio audience with one of those big, glowing sign that reads, “Laughter!” or “Applause.” Is your writing doing too much work?

2. Break your writing down into speakable units. Compactness is a virtue. Scannability is a talent. And the kind of writing readers love the MOST is flowing, breathable and easy to speak. That’s why it’s always helpful to read your work aloud during editing, sculpting and incubation periods.

It’s amazing how many sentences – that look great on paper – are unspeakable when articulated orally. So, this process helps you try out, switch up and rework your sentences into a more rhythmic, melodious and musical style. “You have to sing your words to your audience,” suggested George Carlin during a 2007 interview with Jon Stewart. How speakable is your writing?

3. Crucify yourself on your pen. As Tolstoy suggested, “Write only with your pen dipped in your own blood.” God I love that quote. And in fact, that’s where I got my official definition of writing: “Sitting down, slicing open a vein and bleeding your truth all over the page.”

I promise that if you show up each day with that attitude, every move you make will be right. Your work won’t always be brilliant, but it will be true. And that’s all readers ask for. That you tell them the truth. Remember: You can’t spell Pentecost without “pen.” What are you crucifying?

4. Don’t be repetitive, but DO say things over and over again. Never underestimate the power of repetition. Pinpointing your thesis and repeatedly punching readers in the face with it is the only way they’re going to be able to stop mid-read and succinctly answer the question from the guy sitting next to them on the plane,

“So, what’s that book about?” he asks. “Oh, this one?” you say, “Approachability.” “Ooh … sounds interesting,” he replies, “I should buy a copy for my asshole boss!”

Bam. One word. Done. A precise answer as the product of persistent repetition. That’s exactly the type of conversation you want people to have about your work.

So, just remember: Your readers’ memories are MORONS, and they need pampering. Saying things over and over again doesn’t just work – it wakes people up. It also keeps your writing consistent. What are you punching your readers in the face with?

5. Escape structure. Give yourself permission to write and accumulate and share a bunch of totally random thoughts. They don’t have to make sense. They don’t have to be organized. They don’t have to be brilliant. They just have to be captured, for now.

You can use them later. You can stretch and grow and expand them when they’re ready. And you can go back and add dimensions TO and improve ON those ideas as you round out your learning. For now, learn to escape structure and flirt with impatience, ambiguity, illogicality, irrationality and insanity. What structures do you need to give yourself permission to escape?

6. Everything is `grist for the mill. “Grist” is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding into flour. Julia Cameron used this term in The Artist’s Way, and I always appreciated her image as the perfect metaphor for writing.

See, as a writer, you use everything that happens to you. Everyone you meet. Everybody you observe. Every emotion you allow yourself to have. Every emotion you experience other people having. It’s all fair game. It’s all prey. It’s all up for grabs. And, the best part about grist – it can become just about anything: Oatmeal. Tortillas. Cookies. Cakes. Pretzels. Dee-licious.

So, think of all the delicious things your ideas, stories and experiences could bake into: Books. Articles. Poems. Songs. Screenplays. Training manuals. Man. I’m getting hungry just thinking about. Maybe it’s time for a Lucky Charms break. What grist are you grinding into your mill?

7. Go beyond what is comfortable in your writing. Constantly ask the question, “What do I risk when presenting this material?” Living your Truth? Being found out? Alienating people? Offending closed-minded Christians? Getting a rise out of your mom? Being booed?

If your answer to that risky question is “Nothing,” or “Not much,” I’d you’re not (yet) uncomfortable enough to write. Are you “sticking yourself out there” on the page?

8. Hang around words and hear what they have to say. The short version of my theory on Content Management is, “Gather always, use eventually and delete never.” That’s because writing is a patience-based sport. It might take years before your idea becomes something bigger.

That’s why you have to keep those ideas in front of your face regularly and listen to what they have to say. Because you can’t decide what you’re going to write. You can only listen carefully for what wants to be written. What are your words telling you?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you a world-class writer?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “9 Things Every Writer Must Do Every Day,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Coach, Entrepreneur
[email protected]

Download a free copy of The Nametag Guy’s (unofficial) 9th book!

HELLO, my name is Scott’s…
“Live your name.”