Dear Andrew: To Rise Above Your Station, Organize Your Information

Dear Andrew,

Listen, I know all this AI talk can get you down. It’s tough out there for writers. You constantly hear about others writing this or that in ten seconds. Meanwhile, you pore over a sentence for an hour. It’s demoralizing.

But I still believe in you. Here’s why: Your knowledge, passions, hobbies and experiences are unique. No one else in the world has your combination. Law, craft cocktails, college hoops, Shakespeare, guitar, psychology, US history, business, storytelling. It's a good mix!

But to truly exploit it to your advantage, you have to gather the right data and store it so it’s easily accessible. ?

Remember when your dad lectured you about organizing the toys in your room so that you knew where to find things? It’s kind of like that. To be truly creative and to have a lot of fun as a writer, you first have to be disciplined.

Listen, I know you consume content like a ravenous wolf at an all-you-can-eat buffet—podcasts, videos, LinkedIn posts, books, and news alerts. There’s a lot of good stuff out there! But it’ll just leave you dizzy if you’re not systematically capturing the most salient points.

It’s a big, missed opportunity. Because your diet of information and lived experiences are special, you can make unique connections that no one else can. Especially in the age of AI, this craft cocktail of knowledge and experience can be your secret sauce. But to fully exploit it, you have to visualize the material you’re working with.

Tangent: I know you’ve been reading Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, the new book by Yuval Noah Harari. Amazing, right?

Remember when he recounts the story of how Facebook’s algorithms stoked anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar (Burma) from 2016-17? He argues that it illustrated the dawn of a new era in which computers were the “kingmakers,” deciding what kinds of content people in the country saw. Facebook’s algorithms could have shown platform users cooking tips or cat pictures; instead, it pushed posts filled with hate speech.

After thoroughly retelling those events, you’ll recall he reaches back millennia for another example in which content curators held sway over people: ?the dissemination of the Bible. As he explains, it wasn’t the authors of the various tracts that won people over; it was the content curators—the church fathers creating recommendation lists. They were the ones who influenced what people read.

In other words, we’ve always had content curators. The difference today is that they include non-humans that can reach people at an unprecedented scale and speed.

I know you thought that was a brilliant insight. I did, too. But did you think about what it took to create that insight? ?

It’s worth dwelling on. Making surprising connections is at the heart of creative insights. But creating genuinely unexpected connections requires a disciplined approach to organizing research, stories, anecdotes, interviews, and other forms of information. The more organized the information, the easier it is to make the connection.

Is this an obvious point? Yes, but because of the information onslaught we face every day, the practice is more important than ever.

Harari has a team working for him. You don’t…yet. But you must continue developing more systematic approaches to information gathering. ?

Collecting with intention

Whenever you’ve struggled with writing, it’s nearly always because you don’t have enough good material. I don’t need to quote the great writing coach Roy Peter Clark back to you, but I will: writing is not magic. It’s a series of steps. You get an idea, collect information to support it, refine it, and draft and clarify.

Knowing what kinds of information to collect is crucial. Remember when one of your first editors bought you The Art and Craft of Feature Writing by William E. Blundell, the late great editor at The Wall Street Journal? What a classic—first published in 1988. Your paperback version is missing the cover, you know that, right? I know you still reference its principles. They’re timeless.

For nearly every piece of long-form writing, you nearly always organize your research considering six categories that Blundell cites as crucial to fully covering a story:

·?????? history (the root of the theme or development)

·?????? scope (how widespread it is)

·?????? reasons (why something is happening),

·?????? impacts (ways to quantify)

·?????? countermoves (what reaction has a development cause) and

·?????? futures (what will happen if this development continues?)

But listen, you can start gathering data and information is not just crucial for the pieces you have to write; it can also be helpful for the pieces you have written yet.

I know you love the Moth story champion Matthew Dicks. And I know you tried his homework for life. Every day, the man writes a short note in an Excel file. The note is meant to identify one kernel that could become a story. It’s not only a great source of ideas for stories he wants to tell on stage; it also allows him to see patterns throughout his life, which can add depth to his stories and meaning to his life. Maybe try that again? Definitely keep journaling.

I’m pleased you’re reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte. I hope you find some of his advice about storing notes helpful. I mean if it works for Taylor Swift….? ?

Above all, Andrew, keep the faith. As Chuck Close said, “Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.”