Ev BogueOctober 15, 2011
When I write, I ask myself this question: what's the most obvious thing I can write about from my experience?
Derek Sivers writes about this: Obvious to You, Amazing to Others.
"One day someone emailed me and said, 'I never would have thought of that. How did you even come up with that? It's genius!'
Of course I disagreed, and explained why it was nothing special.
But afterwards, I realized something surprisingly profound:
Everybody's ideas seem obvious to them." -- Derek Sivers
When I push myself to write the craziest shit imaginable, most of the time it doesn't land.
When I write something obvious (to me), often it leads to amazement from people who read my work.
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It seems obvious to me that all of my stuff fits into a bag. It seems obvious to me when I write like I talk. It seems obvious to me that I don't need to use Facebook. It seems obvious to me that books are now fluid containers for information. It seems obvious to me that everything is an experiment.
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When I write what's obvious to me, and amazing to others, I have an easier job as a writer.
My writing also lands with the people who gather around my work.
This seems obvious to me. But is it amazing to others?