Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content
Mark Levy
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 1605095257
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
When it comes to creating ideas, we hold ourselves back. That’s because inside each of us is an internal editor whose job is to forever polish our thoughts, so we sound smart and in control, and so that we fit into society. But what happens when we encounter problems where such conventional thinking fails us? How to get unstuck?
For Mark Levy, the answer is freewriting, a technique he’s used for years to solve all types of business problems, and generate ideas for books, articles and blog posts.
Freewriting is deceptively simple: Start writing as fast as you can, for as long as you can, about a subject you care deeply about, while ignoring the standard rules of grammar and spelling. Your internal editor won’t be able to keep up with your output, and will be temporarily shunted into the background. You’ll now be able to think more honestly and resourcefully than before, and will generate breakthrough ideas and solutions that you couldn’t have created any other way.
Levy shares six freewriting secrets designed to knock out your editor and let your genius run free. He also includes fifteen problem-solving and creativity-stimulating principles you can use if you need more firepower—seven of which are new to this edition—and stories of problems he and others have solved through freewriting.
Also new to this edition: an extensive section on how to refine your freewriting into something you can share with the world. Although Levy originally taught freewriting as a private brainstorming technique, over the years he and his clients have found that, with some tweaking, it’s a great way to generate content for books, articles, and other thought leadership pieces.
health and taste requirements. Around the world? That would give us an international presence. It’s true, you write, that by virtue of being on the Net, BeefSalami.com already has an international presence. But as part of a sanctioning body, the company could form crucial alliances with meat producers from other parts of the globe. We could translate our Web page into two dozen other languages and advertise our product in the appropriate countries as an exotic import. You continue writing down
understanding his position, add to it, and then knock it down. • Speak to a fictional person who has a combination of thoughts and behaviors drawn from real personalities. • Talk to yourself, not as you are today, but as you were seventeen years ago. • Talk to a future you. • Remove yourself entirely from the conversation, and encourage a discussion between others (Lao Tzu and a dope; your accountant and Oprah; Bill Gates and a talking dog). Although holding these imaginary dialogues can be a
for an interesting, perspective-changing dialogue. What you should do, then, is engage in some method acting as you hold a conversation during your freewriting, that is, experience being in the presence of the person you’re speaking to, and experience yourself as that person. Remind yourself, through your writing, to know what they might know and act as they might act. This character-inhabiting exercise isn’t as unusual as it sounds. Many novelists create dossiers about their characters, full of
feeling, even if you’re not 100 percent sure what you’re thinking and feeling. There’s also benefit in sharing your unfinished thoughts. Creating a document to pass around gives helpful form to your rough thinking; it gives people something tangible to react to. The feedback will be useful, and so will the energy and thought you put into creating it. 138 Chapter 22 Sharing Your Unfinished Thoughts What Karl called a talking letter, I’ve since called by different names, including a pass-around
Normally, I’d have been embarrassed to write that story, because it wasn’t about business. But, for some reason, I knew it was important, it was something I had to write about, and the abandon of freewriting gave me confidence. I shared what I wrote with friends, who appreciated it. I then started blogging. I write about business and technology, but I also write about scenes like “Bella and the Hawk” that move me. As you go about your day, then, keep your eyes open for stories and other kinds of