David Perrell on Derek Sivers

Summary

Here's the simplest distillation of his writing process from one of his articles:

Write all of my thoughts on a subject.
Argue against those ideas.
Explore different angles until I’m sick of it.
Leave it for a few days or years, then repeat those steps.
Hate how messy these thoughts have become.
Reduce them to a tiny outline of the key points.
Post the outline. Trash the rest.

When Derek Sivers finishes writing a book, he goes over every sentence to ask himself: Is it worth killing a tree for this one? Then, he deletes everything that doesn't make the cut. Here's what else I learned about writing well by interviewing him:

Every new idea is accompanied by a childlike excitement. Capitalize on it. Get to writing right when you have an epiphany. Your work will have a unique energy that you’ll lose by waiting.
Doesn't matter how talented of a writer you are. If the basic idea isn't good, you're going nowhere.
If something is lighting up eyes offline, it will attract eyeballs online. Future articles are often things that friends find interesting in conversation.
To write is to filter the past for the future. Writing is how you choose what you (and the world) remember.
The technique that’s improved his writing more than anything else in 20 years: When writing your first draft, make each new line a new paragraph. Club them together at the publishing stage, but at the drafting stage, this is how you check whether the lines stand on their own.
Subtracting is the key to great writing: Signal is what remains when all noise has been ruthlessly pruned. Or, as Hans Hofmann said: “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
What is obvious to you may be a eureka to someone else. Don't pre-filter. Get your ideas out on the page first. Then, edit.
Derek's Law: Hell Yeah or No. Flow with an offer, opportunity, or idea if it makes you go "hell yeah." Otherwise it's a no.
Get to the essence of things, and then let nothing stand between the reader and this essence. Remove all cliches, jargon, and over stylized prose that stands between the reader and the truth.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a paradox to be experienced.
You can believe one thing and you can also believe it's opposite. You could even live one thing and also live its opposite. Great writing captures such dichotomies.
People underestimate how effective it can be to just cold email somebody. The difference between good and bad networking, in the age of the internet, is sincerity. Write authentic messages and you will get responses.
Marketing is the final extension of your art. It’s not the enemy of your work, but rather your biggest friend.
Your heroes show which way you’re facing. The answer to “What should I do with my life?” will come once you tackle “Who do I most admire?” Make a list of your heroes, find the common links, and you’ll have your answers.
Marketing boils down to caring: Don’t confuse the word “marketing” with advertising, announcing, spamming, or giving away branded crap. Really, “marketing” just means being considerate. Marketing means making it easy for people to notice you, relate to you, remember you, and tell their friends about you.
Somewhere between boredom and panic is the right path: If you have too much stability, you get bored. If you don’t have enough stability, you panic. So keep the balance.
Give into your rhythms. Who knows why the brain is into different things at different times. But we’re so much more effective when we follow what our body wants to do instead of trying to fight it.
If you’ve got writer’s block, enjoy the silence while it lasts.
Pour your personality and philosophy into the way you do business. People actually appreciate it when you do things in a surprising way. It shows you care more than most — that you’re putting your self into this — that you’re not just in it for the money. These maxims are just a taste of my full interview with Derek Sivers about his writing process. It’s linked below…

Summary

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