Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Nail the real idea
Capture your idea
Focus

Your brain’s got another trick up its sleeve, too.

It holds out on you.

Here’s what it doesn’t want you to know: The best ideas can only be reached by going through a series of lame ideas.

See, your brain throws out mediocre ideas first, to see if you’re paying attention. You ask for ideas, and, okay, it chucks out a couple nuggets.

But it’s only testing you.

If you take those first nuggets and let that Oscar-winner go wild, the brain sits back and says, “Too easy.” It knows you’ll jump at anything, so it doesn’t have to work very hard.

Only one problem. It then doesn’t work very hard. You’ve trained it, just like you’d train a puppy. Except you did it backwards. You trained your brain to make a mess on the rug.

Don’t settle for the first idea you come up with.

The first idea is almost always your brain’s lazy way of avoiding any real effort. It’s understandable. We all do it. No animal on Earth expends more energy than it has to. And that’s why people are lazy. It’s natural. It’s innate.

But it kills your writing.

Always dig deeper. Find the real idea underneath the first few nuggets. Unless you’re completely 100% certain you’ve nailed the best possible approach to whatever it is you’re writing, you can’t stop there. You’ve got to look beyond.

You’ve got to see where those nuggets lead.