Struggle and Flow

`0:05:23`

why things are coming out so well in a sense. Yeah. You know, like I'm I'm proud of the work at the end, but I don't really understand how I got there. Sometimes I read a sentence and I'll be really proud of it. And I'm like, that's a good sentence. I don't know where that came from. But it's really good and I'm proud of that sentence and that kind of propels me through to the next one and the next And then there's also an aesthetic though to when I look at what I'm writing. I can't exactly explain it, but I'll look at a sentence and I'll say, does that sentence look right? Like the letter forms, does it look right? Is it too jaggedy or does it feel right or are the other words too long and then too short and too like there's a there's something I try to get to where but it has to happen naturally is the point. Like I'm not going to replace a couple words because the shape of the word doesn't work for me as well. I want

`0:06:08`

to write something out and I'll look at it and go, that feels good. That feels nice. Just like you you you you come upon something you're on a hike or something and you find a branch. Like every once in a while I'll find a branch with like lichen on it. I'm like, that just looks good. That's how I want my sentences to look. That just looks good. That there was no effort in that. It just is. And when I find those lines that really kind of propels me through the piece. And if I don't find one early, I know it's not going to be good. So I stop again, throw it away, come back to it later. I've heard people equate it to skiing. I'm not a skier, so Me neither. So I've like totally dropped the metaphor, but I guess that Shooting free throws maybe. Shooting free throws, who knows? But I guess you're ski and then you kind of find this line, you just sort of follow it. When you're in a really good flow, the line just sort of opens up and emerges.

`0:06:54`

Actually, okay, we'll do a football Like I'm not a big football fan, but I know I know football. Okay, so basically like when you're running back, you're sort of following what the line is is is doing. They're trying to create a hole for you. And sometimes it just sort of emerges, but then you just got to run. And I have found that when I'm writing, there's there's certain times where I have to say I got to put the plans away. I'm not coming to dinner. Like I found a hole and I need to run because that hole will close in 12 hours. Yeah. You don't control the hole. Yep. It's just like someone makes it for you or something makes it for you and you go. And there's there's this song when I wrote this thing called the um 37 Signals Guide to Internal Communication. Yeah. Yeah. Read that. And I wrote that in like an hour and it's long. And I

`0:07:40`

just couldn't stop. Like the the hole was open and I just felt like I just was in a flow and just kept going. And I barely edited that piece at all and I felt really good about it at the end, but that only happens when there's the hole. Again, if I if I'm finding myself in the middle of it and I think it was like I don't know, 30 points or something like And then sometimes I'm like, well, I want to get to 37 because that's our 37 signals, 37. But then I'm like, then now it's contrived and I have to stop myself very quickly from going over the edge because once I go into that contrived place where I'm where I'm I'm efforting something too much, it's going to be bad. I really don't want it to feel like effort. When it does, then I feel like I'm in the wrong place. Let me say this too. When I when I read I can sort of intuit that that's how the

`0:08:27`

off I'm guessing here, but that's how the author was feeling when they were writing it too. Like I'll read something. I just read this book, The Overstory. You know this book? Yeah, Richard Powers. Yeah. Oh my god, it was incredible. I mean, it's a Pulitzer Prize winning book, so like I'm not the first person to say it, but his writing style, I just kept reading it and I'm like, man, he must have been smiling when he wrote this. That's how it felt. There's some super clever lines and clever paragraphs and clever passages. I'm like, he must be so proud of himself at the end of that. It's like, that that nugget, those six sentences together, that just nailed it. And I can just imagine a smile or imagine a pride in that in the author. That's what I want to get to. I want to have that feeling when I write something. What came to mind was Like this sense of just Oh my goodness.