0:00
I'm trying to get something so authentic on the page that people are like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you're telling the truth."
Search this video
0:04
There's parts of you that sort of are inside that are like secrets and you share them with the world and it's terrifying.
0:12
Kevin Hart said he has a great line, which is, "Take the bullets out of the gun."
0:12
So whatever you might get criticized for, you can only have the answers within the book.
0:19
You should just tell your story with uncommon honesty.
0:23
And then edit it with uncommon brutality.
0:23
Start from the principle that nobody cares.
0:28
Your job as a writer is to think, how do I make them care?
0:28
For example, I'm doing this podcast called To Die For It, so this isn't out yet.
0:32
I received a call from the FBI.
0:32
The caller wanted me to train several dozen intelligence agents, "Train them in what?" I asked. "Seduction." So I'll pause there. I'm gripped.
0:47
Tell me the story of that. It's really interesting.
0:51
You have to know how to hook people into your writing.
0:58
People don't want to read your stuff, and unless you have a good introduction, they're not going to stick around.
1:03
Our guest today, Neil Strauss, is an absolute master at doing this. So we got into it.
1:08
How do you hook in readers?
1:08
How do you bring people in in just one or two sentences?
1:14
And what he does is he opened up his phone and he said, "These are my favorite introductions of all time, and I'm going to show you exactly why I like them.
1:19
And then I'm going to show you exactly how I write one."
1:23
And then he talks about a new show that he's working on and talks us through his trailer and exactly how he wrote it.
1:29
So grab your pen, grab your notepad, tune in for this conversation with Neil Strauss.
1:35
Do you feel like psychologically, you don't have the muscle of resistance that makes you say, "Oh, you can't say that.'"
1:44
Or do you have it and you've just sort of trained yourself to push through that?
1:48
Yeah, there's the second part of it, but the first part is you just have to understand that your deepest darkest thoughts are probably shared by other people who are too afraid to say it.
1:52
And you can speak for them and they're like, "Oh, I relate to this, I see this."
1:57
Everybody's out here trying to be confident and good-looking and feel like they're successful and they got it all and they're popular and all these things.
2:09
But inside, we're not just us, even the most famous figures in the world, there's that famous story about how Abraham Lincoln walked around with his friends, wouldn't let him carry a pocket knife in his pocket in case he tried to kill himself. Oh, wow. Yeah.
2:22
So we see these figures and we think that's how we're supposed to be, but beyond the presentation is so much human stuff.
2:30
I want to write about the human stuff.
2:30
And so then the answer then to answer your second question is I believe in context, which meaning that social media is an out of context machine.
2:46
It takes things out of context and sensationalize them, and helps people get really deeply misunderstood by just taking one thing and then turning it into a really strong narrative.
2:57
That I think in a book or a long-form essay, you have the room for context, so you can explain what this thought is or this idea or this thing you did and where it came from and what the intention was and what the consequences were.
3:07
And I think with context of this larger something, you can really share and people can understand.
3:15
And if someone takes the out of context, it's like, well, there's the context already there in the book. Yeah.
3:21
I remember I published a piece one time and somebody said, "How do you feel now that you've published the piece?"
3:27
And I took a deep breath and I said, "I almost feel like I've lost a part of myself or I've let a part of myself go," in that there's parts of you that are inside that are like secrets, and then you put them onto the page and you share them with the world and it's terrifying for a few days.
3:47
And I remember feeling that vividly in the moment.
3:54
And I still now even have paragraphs from different pieces that I've written and that I've taken away.
3:59
And I'm like, I'm not ready to share that.
3:59
And you are somehow able to push through that in a really meaningful way.
4:05
I think it's because I feel the opposite.
4:05
I feel once I share it...
4:09
I feel seen and safe because I have nothing to hide.
4:09
Someone once told me, "Evil is worse than good, and hypocrisy is worse than evil," is something they said.
4:23
It was an interesting quote.
4:23
And I like that because we really don't like people who present one way and act another.
4:29
Like even charming villains in our culture in a sense.
4:29
But I think once you're showing all these parts, you have nothing to hide.
4:36
Or maybe a better analogy is like they say in AA, "You're as sick as your secrets." Wow.
4:45
Right, so by sharing those things, you feel relieved.
4:45
It's like a burden or a weight off. Yeah, no kidding.
4:51
And that said though, to speak to that fear, everyone I've ever done a book with has a moment before it's going to come out where they're completely terrified.
5:00
If they are, you really, and if you are in your own book, your own writing, you know you said something meaningful and that matters because you have that fear.
5:10
You're going somewhere uncomfortable and then it's worth sharing.
5:10
And so not everyone can get over that fear.
5:15
I had one person literally go to the publisher, I had written a book with him and said he was going to kill himself if the book came out, literally. He was that terrified.
5:26
And literally, the other thing is once they come out, none of those worst-case scenarios happen.
5:31
I haven't seen one happen, ever.
5:31
But people have these fears of being seen and the fears of vulnerability and the worries about being taken out of context or the culture or what-have-you.
5:43
But again, once they're out, if you're saying it in a book or an essay versus an interview, you are in control of the story.
5:53
You can say it with all the nuance it deserves. That's really well said.
5:58
And the layer that I'd add onto it is then the difference between being seen in the public eye versus being seen in the eyes of your friends.
6:05
So I think I'm super open with my buddies, but to be seen in the public eye and then maybe to have those things maybe even be used against you in the future or something like that.
6:18
You're sort of saying, I don't know if that's as big of a deal as you think.
6:22
But I think that that is part of the fear that I think I feel. Yeah, two thoughts.
6:27
One is I would almost argue there are sides of yourself you don't show your buddies, as somebody who runs coaching type groups with people sometimes, they share things they don't share with their buddies or their partners that are like, there's a deeper level of vulnerability.
6:41
And even that deeper part I want to share in the book that your buddies are like, "Oh, I never knew this."
6:45
Or that goes even deeper.
6:45
And the other side is, can it be used against you?
6:54
The answer is anybody who wants to take you down, will find a narrative to take you down.
6:59
Anyone who wants to lift you up, will find a narrative to lift you up.
7:02
It's out of your control.
7:02
And then just by the way, I think I just want to clarify something is like we're not saying we're going to share all our toxic thoughts and traits here.
7:13
We're going to say, if I have a toxic thought or trait, where does that come from? What does that mean?
7:17
What does that say about me?
7:17
And what's my relationship with it? And why do I have it?
7:17
And is this bad or hurtful?
7:21
So we look at it with a conscience versus just vomiting bile on the paper.
7:30
But we might say, there might be a side of us that wants to vomit bile that we look at and explore.
7:33
So I guess we're doing this in a conscious way, not in an unconscious way.
7:33
And I think maybe that's the difference.
7:40
I want to make sure that since people may not have read the work or have the context for this, that we're doing it in a conscious way versus an unconscious way.
7:53
Well, I want to follow that thread because this is something that I see with a lot of writers who are working on things that I don't think is particularly good, is what they're trying to do is they're trying to be vulnerable, they're trying to be vulnerable.
8:04
And they think that that's what leads to good writing.
8:07
And so what they'll do is they'll vomit these half-baked diary entries onto the page.
8:12
And they're saying, "I'm being vulnerable. I'm being vulnerable."
8:12
But I'm like, "That's not enough."
8:17
You need to synthesize what it is that you're writing about, make sense of it in a way that I think leads to some sort of insight or some sort of story that has a nice rhythm and a cadence.
8:27
It's not enough to just be vulnerable. Yeah.
8:31
So step one is to be vulnerable.
8:31
Step two is to be vulnerable in a way that's interesting to other people. Yes, talk about that.
8:37
So it's funny that you said vomit or maybe, I don't know who started the vomit metaphor, but I do call the first draft of vomit draft sometimes.
8:41
So the first draft is that vomit draft.
8:46
You get it all out there and no one's going to ever see that.
8:46
So when you're writing with vulnerability, you actually can share everything there because no one will see it.
8:50
So I always say, do get it all out there, name names, even if you want to protect those people later, say the things you wouldn't normally say because no one's going to see it.
9:00
And then the second draft, I call it, so the first draft is for you I say.
9:04
The first draft is just for you.
9:04
You're doing it just for you, no one's ever going to see it.
9:08
And then it's out of your brain.
9:12
It's somewhere on that computer file or that notebook or whatever you're writing on, somewhere, and it's all there.
9:17
And now you get to craft it.
9:17
So the second draft is for the reader.
9:17
You make the second draft and you now make it readable, like you were saying about your students.
9:23
Well, clearly if you're vulnerable and now make it interesting vulnerable.
9:27
And so I definitely find there are things all the time, true of every book I've ever written and anyone I know who's ever written a book, they don't always follow this, but there are things that feel really interesting and important and let's say vulnerable to you, but they're not to other people.
9:43
They're not to your look.
9:43
And then you have to remove those.
9:43
As important as that instance was when you thought, this is going to be the best, craziest thing in my book.
9:52
They're like, it doesn't work.
9:52
You have to be able to remove that to make it interesting.
9:52
So the second draft is for the reader, because the ideal reader is you.
9:56
So many people, when I'm writing for the reader, I didn't realize this until later, you don't know what people like or they don't like, and you can't second guess.
10:08
So my ideal reader is me as a reader.
10:08
So I'm really writing for me, me, the writer, is writing for me, the reader, if that makes sense.
10:13
So you're writing that amazing reader draft, and you really have to have some objective, some way to get outside yourself to really write well.
10:23
And then just to close the thought, do you know what the third draft is for? Any guesses? The critic. Yeah.
10:32
The hater, the critic, exactly.
10:32
So this is super important for writers.
10:32
I find that all these questions of what are people going to think or what am I going to get attacked for this?
10:45
Or is this a legal situation I need to look at?
10:45
Save that all for later, save that all.
10:45
So once the book's all done and it's the best book you can make it, then go back with your critics.
10:58
That's the time you put on the critics cap and you think, okay, I'm saying this scientific fact about cold bass, but whatever.
11:04
Andrew Huberman said this, so I need to acknowledge that that's out there and then respond to that.
11:11
And as Kevin Hart said, he has a great line, which is, "Take the bullets out of the gun."
11:18
So whatever you might get criticized for, you can already have the answers within the book or fact checking.
11:22
I'll check my facts way later in the hater draft to make sure all the facts are right.
11:28
And we can talk about that later because I go super extreme on that.
11:31
It's really interesting.
11:31
Or again, the lawyer read is the last thing they do at the publisher is they have the legal read, and so I say that for later.
11:38
So that's the way I structure it.
11:43
So going back to your student is, "Cool, awesome.
11:43
You delivered vulnerability to the page.
11:48
Now let's make that interesting to someone who doesn't know you." Yeah.
11:53
Can we get concrete here with a story that you told either that you felt like was a bit of a vomit draft and how you actually turned it into something that was worthy and insightful or the opposite, something that you wrote that you ended up scrapping? Yeah, sure.
12:10
So I did a book called The Truth, and it was literally about my questions of is monogamy natural?
12:16
And what's the right relationship style for us? And everything else.
12:16
And so I underwent a number of experiences, and I was trying to think, look into communal living.
12:23
So I invited different people who had really open relationship philosophies and things like that and people.
12:31
And everyone was really down with this thing. It just didn't work.
12:37
It was sort of like this 50 page chunk that just book was already too long.
12:42
And by that point we're like, "Neil, you're already an idiot, and we know this is going to fail if we're reading it."
12:47
So we don't need that story there, even though I thought this didn't work out how I thought, but it worked out in such this wild way.
12:57
So I kept shrinking it, shrinking, making it shorter and shorter. It wasn't working.
13:02
And then eventually I decided that I'd take some of these sort of failed experiments in alternative relationship situations in turn them into a two-page illustration that just went in the book.
13:13
So maybe what was once 100 pages in that story and other experiments turned into just a two-page illustration.
13:20
And the way you rationalize taking it out is you tell yourself, oh, we'll add this to the paper back, or these will be bonuses if people order the book as PDFs or something.
13:30
There's a point where you stop telling the book what it wants to be and it starts telling you what it wants to be.
13:36
And that happens really early.
13:36
So I always start a book with an intention and an idea of what I want it to be.
13:40
And eventually I'm just helping the book that wants to exist come into existence in a sense.
13:46
And I find that people who are fixed, I hope they're not upset with me if they listen to this, but I talked to somebody and they were doing a book that was 50 dates with 50 different people looking for love.
13:54
But after like the 12th date, they found the person they want to be with.
14:00
So do you stick with that idea?
14:00
She stuck with that idea and did all 50 dates.
14:05
But the thought is you just stop at 12 and you continue the journey because life is moving in that direction. And same with the book.
14:10
Once you start writing it, you'll see where the energy is flowing, what gets you excited, where the movement is, where it's leading you.
14:17
And you listen to it instead of forcing it to fit into your box.
14:23
So as an example of this, as far as things we cut out is I remember every book I've ever done, there might be an idea in the truth we were talking about, there was an idea that a real big epiphany I had on, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was a big epiphany on relationships and a really important idea that helps make healthy relationships work.
14:35
And it was just this beautiful paragraph and I kept putting it in different places and it just didn't fit anywhere.
14:49
And I couldn't force it, and I had to just get rid of it, as much as it was one of those great lines you think people would underline and share on social media.
14:53
So you have to stop that person with a vulnerability essay.
15:02
Once it really gets going, it's almost like puzzle pieces, certain pieces fit in certain pieces. Yeah.
15:08
I want to go back to that first draft idea because when you were saying, reminded me of visiting the statue of David in Florence, and basically, there's sort of a room outside with a few paintings, and then you spend some time in there, and then you walk into the room where the statue of David is.
15:25
And you expect that the statue is going to be there.
15:30
But what you don't expect is that there's four to six statues on that walk that are unfinished.
15:35
And what you see is you see marble that has started to be carved, but it hasn't been finished in the carving, and it's really ugly. It's really ugly.
15:43
And you look at these unfinished statues, and to me, they're almost more profound than the statue of David itself.
15:55
The fact that the unfinished statues, they almost feel wretched, they feel gross.
15:55
And I think it's a very good metaphor for the creative process.
16:01
Yeah, I always do use that metaphor.
16:01
It's funny, interesting, I guess a lot of people do because it makes sense.
16:05
You have this block of marble and you're just getting into the finer and finer details until you're really just trying to sculpt the nose perfectly and you're thinking, should this be a that or which, or maybe a this?
16:19
And you're just thinking about that for five minutes, about that word.
16:19
Whereas in that first draft, you're just, who cares?
16:23
So then what I hear you saying is just keep going.
16:28
What was that line from John Lennon about finishing the song? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's interesting.
16:30
So John Lennon always said, and there's a second half of the story that I noticed that's interesting.
16:35
John had always said, "Once you start a song, don't stand up till it's finished." And I think that's true.
16:39
In a sense of some of the larger form writing, you might have to stand up and keep your head in that thought process.
16:44
Don't step out of that thought process until it's finished.
16:48
But it's interesting because in the Beatles documentary on Disney, I think. Get Back. Get Back.
16:55
They actually, the Beatles, someone else in the band is giving him shit because he doesn't follow his own advice.
17:00
So actually, there's a callback to that in the documentary where they're saying he doesn't follow his own advice. So it's interesting. I didn't realize that. Yeah. So is that what you do?
17:11
How do you think about that when writing a book?
17:14
You just stay in the thought process of it.
17:14
You keep your head in the creative questions of the book.
17:21
You don't stop and just start another project entirely.
17:21
You just keep your head in the game, if that makes sense. And don't put it down.
17:27
I think anyone knows this, if you put something down for too long, it's so hard to pick it up again, even if it's just two weeks. Yeah.
17:37
There's something, dare I say, sacred about that moment of epiphany.
17:37
That you have it and there's a creative life force that an idea has right after the inspiration has struck, that you will never regain.
17:50
Now you get other things in other moments, but there is that, for me, a primal lionesque energy that I get in that first moment that I need to run with. Yeah.
18:01
And if you can't write it, just record it on your phone. That's what I do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's true.
18:05
When it's there and you think you're going to remember it, you won't remember it or you won't remember it with the same resonance.
18:09
How does epiphany show up for you?
18:09
Either like a eureka moment or the moment when you say, "I need to write this book, or whoa, that'd be a great story, or I'm really angry about something, I need to write about this."
18:19
What's the shape of that? Yeah.
18:25
I think for me, epiphany won't turn into a book because I want to make sure that it lasts with me for a long time, you know what I mean?
18:31
Sometimes an epiphany strikes you in the moment and then to the spirit.
18:35
But usually, the epiphany process would really be more for solving a problem in the book, like for example, I'm doing this podcast called To Die For, that I do this sort of storytelling, more documentary type podcasts, just 12 episode series. So this isn't out yet.
18:47
I literally just got the mix. So this is the intro. So this is the teaser.
18:57
In June of 2011, I received a call from the FBI.
19:06
The caller wanted me to fly to Washington, DC and train several dozen intelligence agents.
19:14
As a writer and journalist, I was confused. "Train them in what?" I asked. His answer, "Seduction." So pause there. Whoa. Yeah. I am gripped.
19:29
Tell me the story of that.
19:32
So first, let's talk more about the structure of it more than the story.
19:32
You'll hear the story, I guess, to some degree.
19:35
But the idea is, and so I love story times we've been talking about, and I thought for a podcast, it's a different type of storytelling because it's audio.
19:41
So the music is even a composer, and I thought about that, the music kind of brings you into it.
19:48
Where does the music stop? All those notes.
19:48
But going back to what we were saying about stories, it's like you lean back with the story and you just take one piece.
19:53
I received a call from the FBI. Oh, that's interesting.
19:57
The caller wanted ask training about seduction, and then what's the next piece?
20:01
So you sort of just lay out one piece at a time, so the mind can wrap itself around each piece one at a time.
20:05
And here's the difference, writing for audio, you're in control of the pacing.
20:12
So in my memory of what I just heard, and I don't know that this is exactly what it's like, but there's a pause after, "In 2011."
20:18
And then a huge pause that goes for me, like the length of a Bible, after, "I received a call from the FBI." And I'm like, what?
20:30
That's a really brilliant observation.
20:30
And it's funny, I've never talked about how we do this, but I did that.
20:34
Once I record the voiceover, I work with the producer on where do we put the pauses?
20:41
In fact, the next sentence you're going to hear, I said, this next sentence is not story, it's a background item.
20:48
So I said, actually remove a lot of the pauses, so it goes by quicker.
20:48
And you won't even notice that as you're hearing.
20:54
But I said that because that should go by faster, because it's not story.
20:58
How many times did you rewrite that and what were you going for?
21:01
I went back to the experimenting of thinking where do I begin this?
21:06
Where do I begin telling the story of what this podcast is about?
21:06
And by the way, this isn't exactly what the podcast is about, but I'm taking you there.
21:10
So I started somewhere else.
21:15
So I tried all these different intros and I was just seeing which one caught my excitement.
21:21
So it maybe started, I can even play other versions, but I tried other versions and this one was like, oh, this is starting to catch me.
21:28
And then once I had the first segment down, which is kind of what we heard, there were other segments.
21:35
And a lot of them, it probably went through 20 drafts of figuring out how to layer it together, but we'll talk about that later.
21:43
But once I found the right intro, I'm like, cool, I got that first, where are we at? 25 seconds.
21:47
It's like that 25 second piece is working now and then I can build the rest after it. Let's keep going.
21:53
I had written a book called The Game about several years I spent undercover in a secret society of seduction experts.
22:01
Latest, the game details his journey into the secret world of pickup artists.
22:05
He knows how to do it, he's here to...
22:05
And to my complete shock, the man on the phone informed me that the book was required reading for him and his colleagues in the FBI.
22:14
In our work where you're developing confidential human sources and recruiting spies, an understanding of how to develop quick rapport and attraction is key and critical.
22:24
This is one of the agents who is present at that session and the former head of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Program.
22:29
He told me that if I was surprised that the American government uses seduction techniques, then just wait till I hear how far the Russian government is willing to go.
22:43
So what just happened is to me, the story got really big in that there was social proof that you brought in with the different voices around The Game, then there's the Russians.
22:48
And now there's all of these people who are coming in.
22:54
So I almost feel like I'm walking and I'm looking, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
22:59
There's all these characters and there's a crescendo that's building. Yes, yeah, that's it.
23:05
I think the important thing to discuss with writing and everything else is I give things an energetic listen.
23:11
And even as I'm listening now, there's a little place where the energy dips, like a little place when the guy's talking and it dips just a teeny bit, then it comes back up.
23:18
So I'm trying to keep that energy taut.
23:24
There's a video that I have a love-hate relationship with on YouTube, which is just the bass drops from Ultra Music Festival, and it's really unenjoyable to listen to because music and an intro like this needs to be like an accordion.
23:38
It needs to stretch and contract with energy.
23:38
You can't just have high energy the entire time.
23:43
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
23:43
And I think that's a good metaphor.
23:47
It's like you're building up to the drop, you can't wait for the drop.
23:47
And it's funny, this little moment here where I said, wait till the Russian government is willing to do, it was a lot of back and forth with say the composer to like after we say that something needs to shift or change, because the whole story changed.
24:01
So something musically really needed to shift and change too, because before, they would just remove the layered tracks of the music and I felt the energy dip.
24:13
So I'm really thinking about those kinds of things. It's like the drop.
24:17
When you're writing, you're telling the story, you want everything to build up to a good drop. Yeah.
24:20
As a journalist, I decided to find out and soon uncovered a ring of Russian models sent around the world with specific instructions.
24:31
All these girls were sent out into the world and they were told, "Try to meet important men, try to attach yourself to important men."
24:38
But no Russian spy was willing to talk.
24:43
I will not be able to respond to this question due to a professional secret. Until today.
24:48
For the first time, a military trained seduction spy tells her story and reveals how the Russian government turns sex and love into a deadly weapon.
25:00
If you want to kill your target, it's easy.
25:00
You just seduce him, take him somewhere, start having sex.
25:09
And then he's very vulnerable, so you can kill him easily.
25:14
I'm Neil Strauss and from Tenderfoot TV, this is To Die For, coming March 26th.
25:21
Listen for free on Apple Podcasts.
25:21
How long does it take to make someone fall in love with you?
25:25
To make someone fall in love, like completely? Three dates. Wow. Minimum hour. I need an hour. That's right. Wow.
25:49
Why do you have the three dates in there?
25:49
Why don't you just cut to an hour?
25:54
There's something so authentic about, oh, I need three dates, minimum three dates.
25:54
Or then she's like, "Or do I need three dates."
25:59
And she thinks about it more, "Minimum an hour." It's so authentic.
26:03
Whereas if she just says, "What does it take you?"
26:03
She's like, "Minimum an hour."
26:08
It doesn't have the effect of actually hearing her think about it, and that's an authentic answer. It's not scripted.
26:13
You can see the conversation is real.
26:13
Because it's funny, a couple of editors mentioned, "We can cut out this or shorten this."
26:20
I'm like, "Oh, let's keep it, just to what it happened authentically because it rings better authentically." Right.
26:29
Can we just zoom out and just walk through the structure of what we just heard?
26:35
So walk me through from beginning to the end, what were the different parts as you see them?
26:40
First piece is going to the assumption that nobody cares and nobody wants to be sold something, starting with a compelling story that draws someone into your world.
26:50
So it's I received a call from the FBI, even if you're just scanning through things, you want to stop and say, well, what was that call?
27:00
Why did you receive a call from the FBI?
27:00
So another thing about the first sentence is that it always asks a question that the person reading or listening to the first sentence, it asks them if they want to know what, why, why were the clock striking 13?
27:12
Why did you receive a call from the FBI?
27:17
And then that keeps someone reading or listening. And so there's that.
27:24
Then there's this sort of twist, the FBI wanted to ask about seduction, which is super weird, right? Right.
27:29
And then when you said it was about social proof, that Jimmy Kimmel clip talking about the game.
27:30
So then it's like, shoot, they need a little bit of context or background.
27:37
So I have to give that as quickly as possible.
27:37
And the Jimmy Kimmel clip is not as much about social proof because I don't think it matters that much if it's not interesting.
27:46
It's more about just putting another voice in there that's not mine, so it doesn't get too boring.
27:50
I also find this true of really long books.
27:50
Sometimes you want to do something, that your voice can start to become boring.
27:55
So it's almost just to give you another voice in there to kind of have you pay attention.
28:00
And then when I put the voice of the agent in there, that's really like, this is so fucking preposterous that I need to prove happened.
28:09
Because you may not take my word for it because it's so preposterous.
28:09
So that is just to say, this actually happened.
28:15
And here's someone from the FBI I talking about it.
28:23
But what I'm really trying to get to is this Russian seduction spy.
28:23
And in the original version that everyone was happy with, we just went to the Russian Spy.
28:27
But I was like, "Well, you can't do that because then the first half is unnecessary."
28:31
From the FBI, the FBI has to bring us there.
28:36
And so the FBI talking about the Russian seducer and then getting to the Russian side of stuff is what bridges that.
28:41
So in other words, you get an interesting opening and then there's this. But what's the bridge?
28:45
And the bridge is that line where he says, "If you think we're doing this extreme seduction, wait to see what the Russians are doing."
28:51
In the actual podcast, he talks about their dirty tricks and tactics.
28:55
So that's the bridge from the first idea into the second that connects them.
29:00
That's often the hardest part.
29:00
So originally, I just went from there right to the Russian seduction spy.
29:08
But I found that it just felt too quick and jarring.
29:08
And it's back to that idea of telling someone everything you're doing right away, and it seems less interesting.
29:17
I felt like I needed to bring them there a little slower.
29:21
So that was that woman who's a model agent talking about how all these Russian models were like, "Why are you modeling in Washington, D. C?
29:30
There's not a great Miami or LA or New York, but in D.
29:35
C, you're really going there to meet political people.
29:35
So I grabbed her quote, someone else would talk on the record, and it was recorded.
29:42
So I wanted to build up to that moment.
29:48
So I said, "We have a bridge into what this podcast is about, and then maybe something that shows how rare or unusual this is.
29:55
And then we meet the spy and then finding the best quote of hers that makes you pay...
30:04
Just one quote that tells you who her character is.
30:10
One of the things that I find is that there's the build, the sort of slower staircase of suspense and then a deep slide of ominousness.
30:18
That is a good way to put it.
30:18
Yeah, I think that's a better energetic read.
30:24
I felt like I was over, because I'm so deep in it.
30:24
But you're saying it really nicely.
30:27
There's that build, then there's a deep slide of ominousness, and then there's the what the fuck? Yeah.
30:34
And the other note I was going to say was the music is, so I think of it in three parts, there's three music cues.
30:38
There's the first music that takes us up to Russian intelligence.
30:38
Then there's the second cue that takes us up to kind of until now.
30:43
Then there's the third music cue that's that piece.
30:48
So in my mind, it's three pieces, which is your intro, your building suspense, as you were saying, and then your story.
30:55
And so the fact is other versions of it, or we probably have to do a 30-second and a 60-second version for podcast, and we'll probably just take that last 30 seconds or something. That's what it's about.
31:05
And then that little tag, it's like fuck, it's not enough.
31:12
You need just a little more reason to want to listen to the podcast. So that's the structure.
31:17
It's interesting because it's so much harder to do something short than something long.
31:22
If you were to say, let's do the 10-minute Neil interview and give you as much value as the 90-minute one, it'd be brutal.
31:28
So you wrote the VO, the voiceover, and then once you got into the editing booth, how much did you trim it once you started to hear it out loud?
31:42
I will read it kind of as it is, and it usually will be those same words.
31:42
What I edit is actually the spaces, and also for the best take.
31:48
I might say three or four different times, we'll put the best takes together and then think about the spacing.
31:55
Where does that pause need to be longer?
31:59
Where should the pauses be shorter?
31:59
And really, I'm just editing the spaces of it. Right.
32:04
Do you feel like you do anything like that in your writing?
32:07
I think you're just always asking yourself, how can I tell this in the most immediate way?
32:10
Without thinking, am I breaking the rule?
32:10
Hearing that, and then also just hearing your breakdown, that woman at the end, one hour is haunting.
32:21
So this is what we're talking about, which is taking this topic you have no interest in and then making you interested in it.
32:25
Because you're not like a spy, like a fishing, I don't know or something like that.
32:30
And I think that's the goal, and that's what we're trying to do.
32:34
And how do you cultivate your life in order to be able to do that?
32:38
How do I personally cultivate my life so I can do that writing thing? Yeah. Yeah.
32:41
I think everyone, I'm sure it's some part of your podcast, everyone has their own schedule that works for them or whatever.
32:43
The first step is, there's so much noise coming in at all times.
32:47
It's like, how do you stop all that freaking noise from the text and the social media and the emails?
32:54
And even people in your house interrupting you, how do you stop all the incoming so you can actually have spaciousness to create?
33:00
The first rule is, I say create systems.
33:08
Yeah, create systems to protect you from your lower self, meaning that willpower doesn't work.
33:16
And we all know it, when we're like, "I'm going to write it this time every day, or I'm going to put my phone away."
33:22
So I'm really strict on my time management systems, and I really look at what's a proactive life and what's a reactive life.
33:33
Reactive is you're just reacting to stuff all day.
33:33
And you can literally just wake up and react all day and be exhausted at the end of the day.
33:37
Or you can be proactive and doing the things that you're on this planet for, that matter, and creating things, whatever those are, it doesn't have to be writing.
33:46
And then deal with the other stuff, reactive stuff at the end of the day.
33:46
And as an example, I realized, for example, I don't know how you guys are on your phone, but I realized I just was doing this dance on my phone where it's like, check my text, check WhatsApp, check Telegram, check Signal, check my Instagram inbox, check my Twitter inbox, check Facebook Messenger.
34:03
And then all day long I'd just pop up and then something would come up.
34:09
And I'm like, this is not healthy.
34:14
I don't know to what degree you do that. I do it all the time.
34:17
So I developed a system with an assistant where I deleted all those off my phone, so I don't have anything but the texts.
34:25
I'm working on a plan to get rid of the texts.
34:25
So I only have texts, all those other apps I do not have on my phone.
34:30
And at the end of every other day, my assistant sends me Notion with all the WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, all those other messages.
34:35
I just answer them all in 20 minutes and then it's done for two days. Nice. Yeah.
34:44
But I said, that's what I mean about create systems to protect you from your lower self, your other self, your compulsive self, maybe that's a better word.
34:48
Your compulsive self is going to check all those things, but if they're not on your phone, not only will you handle it once every two days or once every day, whenever you want to do it, but everyone actually gets responded to.
35:01
You're actually better at it if you systematize it.
35:07
I want to talk about how you inject life into your writing, and there really is a sense of vitality in your words that I think is very unique.
35:13
And you've said that the cardinal sin of writing is to be boring.
35:19
So how do you get away from the boredom and how do you bring that sense of vigor and entertainment into your work? Yeah, good question.
35:25
I think I start from the principle that nobody cares. Literally nobody cares. And it's kind of true.
35:29
I think that nobody cares about me.
35:35
They don't care about what I have to say, they don't care about my life, they don't care about my so brilliant ideas. I think I'm brilliant. They don't care.
35:39
They literally don't care, and they really don't.
35:44
So many people on this planet, we can't care about everybody and what they have to say.
35:49
And so many books and articles and social media posts get thrown at us every day and videos.
35:55
So if you start from the premise that nobody cares, then your job as a writer is to think, how do I make them care?
35:59
And I think it's such an important place to start writing, especially if you're doing more long form.
36:03
If someone's going to live with you in a book or a long essay or something that might take anywhere from an hour of their time to 20 hours of their time, they're asking, "Is this going to be worth it?"
36:14
And so you just start from that premise and you make it interesting.
36:20
And the sign of it being interesting is when it's interesting and fun to you.
36:25
And you're like, "Oh my God, this is great.
36:25
I want to read it to my friend."
36:25
So when you have that moment of I want to read this to my friend, or I can't wait to share this, then you know you're onto something. Yeah.
36:33
And so tactically, what do you do from like how does that show up in a first draft, a second draft, a third draft?
36:37
How do you start with an interesting idea and then refine your way to a more interesting one? Yeah.
36:47
I think with an article, it's just starting with an interesting place or interesting premise.
36:53
I don't know if you ever talk about first lines here, there's so many great first lines of, some of my favorites are, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
37:04
And it's such a good line because you're like, wait, what? Where are we?
37:04
So it starts with this almost cliche, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
37:09
And you kind of lean in, and that's from George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's so subtle and good.
37:13
I try not to do the classic ones that everyone does.
37:19
Another great one, they each do a different thing.
37:24
So I love, I'm a big fan of first lines, and so it's finding something that draws the reader in.
37:30
So one of the biggest mistakes people make when writing is they try to get their whole thought or their whole idea or their whole concept into it right away.
37:36
They want to make sure they explain it and people understand it.
37:42
So the fact is, you have a lot of time and space to do it.
37:42
So if you just lean back and you slowly draw them into the idea step by step, without rushing it, you avoid giving people too much and too big of a bite they can't swallow.
37:54
It's like a sandwich wrapping on your, you get those sandwiches sometimes and they're so big, you're like, that literally won't fit in my mouth or whatever.
38:02
And people do that a lot.
38:02
And then right away someone's eyes glaze over.
38:07
So if you just give them, just as the idea probably occurred to you over time, you can let the idea arrive to the reader also over time.
38:11
And not feel the need to rush it, but just to really lean back.
38:17
And it's also beautiful if someone's reading a essay or a piece or a book on something specific and they know they're going to get this one piece of knowledge out of it and you can start it somewhere else because they know they're going to get that other idea out of it.
38:33
So you can set it somewhere else interesting and bring them over to where you're taking them.
38:37
So it's really just lean back and don't be in a rush and keep it interesting.
38:43
So it could be a couple... Go ahead.
38:43
Let me just say one more thing about that.
38:43
The metaphor that comes to mind is a door.
38:47
That all you want to do is get somebody into the house, and once they're inside the house, they'll actually want to explore the rooms.
38:53
But there's a fundamental difference between being outside the door and inside the door.
38:57
And if you can make the door beautiful and compelling enough, you open that door for somebody, they walk through.
39:05
And I just want to double-click on something that you're saying that's very profound, is if you are writing about something that is as large as the United States of America, all you need to do is start with a great story about a lunch in Knoxville, Tennessee.
39:17
And if you can bring somebody into the United States of America through that story, that is enough.
39:29
And you're just trying to create that momentum so that you can get someone from the first sentence to the second to the third, and then really get them in the flow of what you're doing. Yeah.
39:37
And don't oversell the lunch.
39:37
I think a lot of people who try to start with the story try to overwrite the story.
39:40
It was a crisp, sharp morning in Knoxville, Tennessee.
39:49
I glanced at my watch and thought to myself...
39:49
But they start putting all these adjectives.
39:49
I can't even do it because it's so hard for me to do because I don't do it.
39:58
But they start adding all these adjectives to every word and just inflating a moment with so much unnecessary air, that now we can't find the essence of what you're trying to say.
40:14
So also, I think keep it crisp, especially at the beginning when you're starting somewhere.
40:20
Later, by the way, you can stretch.
40:23
Once someone's in the home, you can show them some of the small, fine details and some of the more wasteful rooms, that you created this tearoom because you had an extra room.
40:28
But you might not start them there.
40:33
So yes, start there, but also keep it crisp.
40:33
I notice people think they're writing by adding a lot of extra words and descriptors.
40:39
Adding extra descriptions is not necessarily writing.
40:47
So I just notice people doing that where they're trying to take a moment and they're trying too hard to blow it up into something important.
40:52
In fact, I would play things way down.
40:56
The second thing I was going to say about, so once you walk in that house, the first room has to be interesting enough to make us want to explore the house. Yes.
41:05
You want to make that room intriguing enough to make someone want to explore the next room and say, "I'm curious what else they have."
41:07
And if one room's kind of a dud, you'll be like, "Okay, but that next room's probably going to be cool."
41:14
When you're starting to write a book or an essay, I spend a lot of time either on the first chapter of the book and then I bomb it afterward, the first few paragraphs of the article, and then I bomb it afterward.
41:25
And the reason is because those first paragraphs you're writing set the rules of what the rest of it will be like.
41:31
You don't even know what those rules are yourself, but somehow they set the rules of what's possible and what's not possible and what the tone is here.
41:42
And then you're sort of following them, because you're world building, you're creating a universe that someone's going to read and enjoy.
41:48
And is it going to be whimsical?
41:52
Is it going to be scientific?
41:52
Is it going to be thoughtful?
41:52
Is the writing style going to be short sentences, long sentences?
41:58
So all these things, you're setting down these rules and creating your world building with those first bits.
42:02
So when writing, we'll say a book, I spend a lot of time on the first chapter.
42:11
I'll spend so much time getting that first chapter really, really dialed in before I vomit, because it's almost like a foundation or a structure, a container to hold the vomit in.
42:21
And then it will help the vomit be much, we got to just end this metaphor, but it'll help it make it easier to work with because I know what the overall style and tone is.
42:35
Interestingly, even though I really, really work hard in this first chapter, spend a lot of time on it and make it really just perfect for that moment, it usually doesn't end up being the first chapter of the book.
42:47
So you don't want to overdo it.
42:47
And the reason is because once you get to the end of the book, that's when you know what it is.
42:53
And then you go back and you hit, the first chapter will reflect where the book was going the whole time.
42:58
And maybe that one that I worked so hard on ends up in the middle.
43:03
I love what you said about the world building in the beginning and how much of it is implicit and all the different layers and components.
43:07
It made me think of Schindler's List.
43:11
You have the black and white movie, but then you have the red.
43:16
And the red means something, and you know that the red means something.
43:16
And there's no part of the movie that says the red means something, and there's like words on the screen.
43:19
You just know it because something is strange, something is off.
43:24
And to your point about overriding, there's this thing that you can feel intuitively as a reader for when the writer's doing a really good job setting up some sort of motif or some critical component.
43:37
And then when they're trying so hard, they're just trying too hard to do something. Yeah.
43:43
And just to answer the question.
43:43
It's almost all implicit, even to you. Whoa.
43:52
Because you're not thinking this is going to be my style and structure.
43:52
You're just thinking, this looks really good to me, but it's already set up the world itself.
43:55
And you'll see that because when you're reading someone's writing, and even the first few pages and they're breaking their own rules, it jars you.
44:04
The other mistake people make a lot is it's like they skip steps.
44:04
I think a great writer takes you by the hand and leads you through the world they've created step by step.
44:19
But if they skip a step or the things don't fit somehow, as a reader, you get jarred out of it.
44:26
And it's as simple, some of those things are blocking.
44:26
Like if you're writing, it's reading through and making sure that whether you're making an argument or you're telling a story, that all the pieces really, really fit together and no one's getting lost.
44:35
And I think it's one of the hardest parts for new writers because what you want to say is so clear to you, but the reader knows nothing.
44:43
And feeling from the beginning, like you're in the hands of a storyteller or a idea sharer or someone you trust to lead you there is the most important thing.
45:00
How do you establish trust with your reader?
45:00
You establish trust by taking the responsibility for the mental journey they're going through seriously, in the same way that if you're taking me somewhere and you keep getting lost, I'm going to be like, "Next time, let's find another way to do this."
45:16
But you're like, "I swear I know whatever it is.
45:16
I swear I know where it is."
45:21
And I'm like, "No, this is not efficient and this is starting to get annoying and I'm losing patience."
45:26
And so I was saying, the great thing about, we're going back to first lines that catch you, I just love some of these.
45:32
And again, I'm trying to share ones that are very different.
45:37
There's another great one. "Mother died today.
45:37
Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure." It's great. It's so good. It's so good.
45:43
And it's just those three simple sentences, we're like, "Okay, what comes next?"
45:53
That's all we want to do.
45:53
And it's so great because it isn't trying like, "There I was, the fate of my life hanging in the balance.
45:58
And one choice would end..."
46:04
It's so simple and subtle.
46:04
And so one, whereas George Orwell is showing a world where something is different, I want to know how this world, how that happened, or what it means when the clocks strike thirteen.
46:14
Here's Albert Camus, The Stranger, I think, The Outsider is Albert Camus.
46:20
And he's taking into a character, someone said about it's a character.
46:20
You're like, "Oh, I wonder what happened or why they're thinking like this, or what's going on?" That's so good.
46:30
And then I'll give you just a third one for fun. It's great.
46:30
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board."
46:36
What does that mean to you?
46:41
Right, it makes you go... That's interesting.
46:41
That's like a powerful thought. I never had that before.
46:46
I never thought of ships in that way.
46:46
It's from Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I love.
46:49
And so meaning that we can start with a story.
46:49
We can start with sort of a character.
46:56
We can start with an idea.
46:56
And again, it makes us go...
46:56
I haven't heard that before.
47:03
Let me take a moment and think about this.
47:03
But it's telling us all these three things, all three sentences now that I think about it are giving us the same thing, which is, oh, this is something new.
47:12
This is something interesting.
47:12
It's making me lean forward.
47:16
One of the lessons that I think I keep learning year in and year out is just what the problem with cliches are.
47:24
Because actually, when people used to say, "Oh, don't write with cliches."
47:29
I actually had no idea why that was important.
47:29
And I think that you just hit it.
47:29
Which is what you're trying to do as a writer is you're trying to have people have thoughts and ask questions that they've never had or asked before.
47:43
And it's not by doing it through loquacious purple prose, it's by doing it with either a depth of perceptiveness or a distinctiveness in how you're seeing the world that is changing what somebody sees and what somebody thinks. Yeah.
48:05
And I just thought of this as you were speaking, the mistake people make is I'm writing, so I need to be a writer, and I'm not a writer. And what do writers do?
48:10
But you're really just expressing.
48:14
So how can I just express in a clear, engaging way and just forget about the writing?
48:19
The people who think too much about the writing, write horribly.
48:19
And I love Cormac McCarthy, the fiction author who passed away recently.
48:27
But there's really no wrongs or mistakes.
48:27
And I like that he just felt like commas and marks just slow down. He just wants the words.
48:35
So he's just like, I'm going to remove commas and quotation marks.
48:39
And you read it, and you don't even notice this.
48:43
There's another writer named Hubert Selby, the same genre though, but who wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn, and his typewriter was broken.
48:47
And instead of apostrophes, he had just slashes, he'd do the slashes instead of apostrophes.
48:53
And in the book is slashes.
48:53
And so that's another example of a world that's built and well, that's okay. That's what we're doing.
48:58
So you have so much, it's just how you express yourself.
49:03
And that was the purest way to express himself of Cormac McCarthy, it was these little weird marks that slow down the meaning. And why?
49:06
I don't want to slow down that.
49:13
That takes away from the purity of my expression or whatever his thought was.
49:13
So sitting down and thinking, what's the clearest, most powerful, most interesting way I can express myself?
49:17
Is a better question than, how do I write this?
49:23
How do you get to that distinctiveness in your writing?
49:29
Because what you're able to do is you do weird things in your life and you ask distinct questions.
49:36
So there's a lot that you do away from the keyboard.
49:36
But then when you're sitting at the keyboard, do you try to push towards weirdness or push towards interestingness? No. No? No.
49:46
Because I think anytime you're trying to push, you're already on the wrong path, right? Yeah.
49:51
It's more like I'm exploring.
49:51
It's like anything in life.
49:58
If you're trying to do something, you're already losing the effect it's going to have.
50:03
If you're in LA trying to show people how much money you have, you're pathetic, right?
50:10
I do like the Bugatti outside of the hotel. But besides that. Exactly, exactly.
50:13
But do you want to be friends with the guy who owns the Bugatti? Maybe, I don't know.
50:18
Do you want to be friends with the guy who comes in, drops his Bugatti keys here, so they're on camera.
50:22
So do you maybe want to be friends with the guy who comes in and leaves and then you walk out, it's like, "Oh, he's driving a Bugatti, I didn't even know that."
50:29
So if you're pushing to let everyone know you own a Bugatti, you've lost the credibility it gets you.
50:33
This podcast is not sponsored by Bugatti. No, no. In the future though? Yes.
50:39
This'll actually be my pitch to Bugatti. Exactly.
50:39
So in the same way, you're really just exploring.
50:46
You're exploring and you're almost just trying to entertain yourself.
50:46
It's almost like a sense of fun.
50:52
You're sort of exploring you're doing something, and then we have something really fun and makes you laugh and you enjoy it.
50:57
You're trying to do something you enjoy.
50:57
And again, I think it's true on the social side too.
51:02
If you're out enjoying yourself, within reason, you're going to be interesting and it's great to have a great time without trying to make sure others enjoy themselves and trying to make sure everyone's happy, you're going to be a nightmare to hang out with.
51:21
So yeah, so I think it's like the formulas are not the outer things you're going for, they're the inner feelings you get when you strike something that excites you. Yeah.
51:34
Fair warning to our listeners, this is will pause the children's portion of the program because this is a vulgar first sentence that you wrote, but I think is probably out of all the ones that I saw, the one that really reeled me in the most. I was like, whoa.
51:47
"'Do you have a big thick penis?'
51:55
Howard Stern asked to guess in his New York radio station one recent Thursday morning.
52:01
The guest, unfortunately, is me." I forgot about that. That's funny.
52:09
That is a wild intro sentence.
52:09
I completely forgot writing that. That's funny. That's funny I thought.
52:14
Yeah, so I think that's it.
52:14
So that assignment was Rolling Stone interview to do a piece on Howard Stern.
52:20
I was observing his show and then somehow ended up as a guest.
52:28
And then when you're done, as if anything you're writing about, you have this big, massive interview or ideas or thoughts or story.
52:35
And then you think, well, where do I begin?
52:35
And you begin at the most interesting points.
52:42
And there's an example of that Christmas, there's really no extra words there.
52:50
You want everywhere to be sort of necessary.
52:50
Maybe he uses a couple extra additives, but that's on him.
52:57
Well, what's so funny about it too is the first sentence of it feels like sort of stuffy, kind of sterile journalistic piece in a way.
53:05
At least these words, "Asked a guest in his New York radio station one recent Thursday morning."
53:19
The posture that I'm getting from the writer is somebody on the 48th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper.
53:24
And then you contrast that with the question that he asked at the beginning and then, "The guest, unfortunately, is me."
53:31
So it makes you want to know what's in the next room, right? Right. You walked in.
53:38
So I think that's part of it.
53:38
And you're right, I think there's another key to it, is that surprise.
53:42
We talked about something feeling new or there's a surprise, which is you begin reading, okay, Howard Stern is saying something kind of crude.
53:47
You're even asking a question like, "Well why are we even reading this?"
53:51
And then you're like, "Oh, I see."
53:51
So even in those two short sentences, you can take someone on a journey, but there's surprise.
53:57
So maybe this sets up the rule, which is, oh, so what of the rules here?
54:00
This is going to be interesting, there's some surprises here.
54:05
It's going to be a little raunchy.
54:05
And something happened in that relationship between the writer and Howard Stern that we're about to find out.
54:10
And so we're doing those things.
54:17
And so it's hard to force these things.
54:17
It's back to what we said about noticing.
54:24
You're noticing those moments and then you're like, "Oh, this is the moment that's going to make people want to see what's in the next room." Yeah.
54:27
I have to commend you, this is what you're so good at.
54:31
I want to do another one.
54:31
"He's popping Viagra and dating identical twins plus a third busty blonde.
54:40
They're in their 20s and are very understanding when he wants to bring additional women into the mix. He is 72 years old."
54:46
And that's about Hugh Hefner. Right.
54:53
Very vivid writing, very simple word choice.
54:57
But it's exactly what you're saying, it's just simple observations.
54:57
And you're just saying, how can I say a lot in just a few words?
55:03
And then in both of those examples, your last sentence puts a twist on everything that's come before.
55:11
And I think the other thing that those two things have in common besides not being for kids, is I wonder why Rolling Stone assigned me all these pieces?
55:22
But the other thing that you're doing is, well, what's my objective here?
55:27
My objective is to show, it's a personality profile.
55:27
So you want to show who Hugh Hefner is who Howard Stern is.
55:33
And so it's not about, oh, this is the most interesting point.
55:38
This is also the essence of them, that Howard Stern, in the interview, is going to be asking you the question about something that makes you uncomfortable and that's who Howard Stern is.
55:48
And using those words, you can maybe read that sentence of Howard Stern and be like, "Oh, that's Howard Stern."
55:53
And same with Hugh Hefner, at 72 still...
55:53
That's the essence, sadly, of Hugh Hefner.
56:00
And so you're also trying to think that just like the DNA, maybe your DNA contains the coding for who you are.
56:08
Your sentences, your paragraphs contain the coding for what the book is and what the purpose of it is.
56:13
So if I start somewhere interesting that really has none of the spirit of what you're writing about, then that's not going to be that interesting.
56:22
Tell me more about writing profiles.
56:22
You've done so many of them.
56:22
And what are some of the things that are distinct about writing profiles versus the other kinds of nonfiction writing that you've done?
56:31
Yeah, I love writing profiles.
56:31
I forget who, some editor once told me, "We're trying to find out what makes someone tick."
56:35
So I'm really trying to get to what is the essence, again, what's the humanity of someone, who they are.
56:39
And so profiles are two parts.
56:46
One part is getting the material to write it with, with someone, which is going back to creating trust.
56:52
And rapport and connection and really being curious about them.
56:52
And then it's what you do with it.
56:58
But there's some amazing profiles.
56:58
There's a famous one by Gay Talese, I think is how you pronounce his name.
57:04
The amazing writer who wrote, I think the New Yorker or New York Magazine, I can't remember.
57:09
But he wrote a profile of Frank Sinatra where Frank Sinatra never showed up to the interview.
57:14
That's one of the most famous profiles ever written.
57:18
Something like Frank Sinatra has a cold. I can't remember.
57:18
Whoever's listening and knows this, knows I'm butchering it all.
57:21
I remember, so I loved, even there was that band, Mazzy Star.
57:21
I remember when I was writing about journalism and they were very quiet and didn't say much in their interviews.
57:34
And then you can be really creative as a writer and do it.
57:34
So you don't have to get a lot, you just have to observe.
57:38
Everything goes back to observing and noticing.
57:38
It comes back to observing and noticing.
57:42
And I think that's why narcissists are not great writers, because they're really not observing and noticing.
57:48
And writers tend to be more, maybe again, I can think about my background, I was raised in a way where I didn't have much of a voice and a lot of it was observing and noticing and seeing things.
58:03
So I think that's really, it's like that observing and noticing and then sharing.
58:09
And so the profile, you were asking about the profile piece.
58:12
So the profiles, it's very, every writing has its intention.
58:12
What's the intention of a memoir versus a textbook versus a literature versus a self-help book?
58:20
And what's the intention of a profile versus a think piece versus a reported piece?
58:26
And then within the structure, so within the rules of that, how can you know the rules so well that you can then innovate within it?
58:36
And I think it's true of any art form, whether you're doing stand-up comedy or screenplay writing or dance. Yeah.
58:49
So when it comes to observing and noticing, I know that you like to take notes while you're out, yeah.
58:55
And how do you think about the taking notes and just the decay of your memory?
58:55
I'll meet people who are like, "Oh, that happened to me three years ago, I just wrote about it."
59:01
I'm like three years ago, it might as well have been a different life or a different human being.
59:09
I just do not remember that.
59:09
I have to take notes in the moment.
59:09
So actually, what I do when I travel is if I'll spend a week or two somewhere, my last day, I'll go for a walk and I just do a noticing exercise.
59:19
I did this when I was in Oaxaca, and I noticed the sidewalks on one side of the street would be wider, and then by the end of that block it'd be so narrow that you couldn't even walk.
59:30
There's like cracks on the streets and stuff like that, and the streets aren't perfectly straight. They sort of bend.
59:33
And the only reason I remember that so vividly now is because I wrote it in the moment.
59:38
And I'm wondering what do you do?
59:43
And then the other piece, just again, just kind of going with what you're saying, now I'll go back to the question you asked.
59:47
But the other thing we do as writers besides noticing things, is making connections.
59:49
So then let's just say you notice that, you're thinking of the beginning of your book, your memoir.
59:55
So you can say this sidewalk, if I got it right, it starts so wide, then it gets so narrow, first with all these cracks and starts twisting and turning, making.
1:00:04
You literally have to get off the sidewalk and go onto the street. Right.
1:00:07
And then you can say, "That's a lot like my life.
1:00:07
It started very clear with a lot of purpose and somehow I've lost it."
1:00:11
So a writer can make a connection.
1:00:11
You're trying to find your beginning and you can take one thing like a sidewalk and then make it mean something else that we're also trying to make connections as writers and artists between these things.
1:00:20
So you can do these exercises and try other things, try other things.
1:00:25
And you can do random things, you can say I make a connection between a sidewalk and this.
1:00:29
In terms of looking for clues, you can say, I'm trying to find the beginning for this article on my thoughts on AI or something like that.
1:00:34
And then you're saying, "I'm going to walk outside and there's three things that I'm going to make parallels with AI."
1:00:43
And maybe you'll find your intro there or maybe that'll take you somewhere.
1:00:43
So back to the question you were asking, which was?
1:00:50
How do you observe and notice tactically?
1:00:54
Do you try to do it in the moment? Oh, remember. Notes, notes. Yeah, so notes. So yes.
1:00:59
I can't stress enough that none of my books would exist if I didn't brain dump within 24 hours of the experience. Oh really? Yeah.
1:01:08
So I really remember say The Truth, when I had that commune story that I was writing about with all that drama.
1:01:14
And I would just be so tired at night I would just write it out.
1:01:14
I remember my hands would be sliding off the keyboard.
1:01:20
I would just somehow get it all down there.
1:01:20
Even with my son, I have an 8-year-old, but my parents only remember the same five or six stories about me.
1:01:30
And I'm sure maybe it's true for most of us here, how many stories do your parents remember about you? Not a lot.
1:01:33
So I started keeping a diary of all his experiences.
1:01:33
And literally, whether they're good or they're bad, I want him to know who he was, his stories, his emotional DNA, the decisions his mom and I made.
1:01:43
So every night after I'm with him, I write down what happened.
1:01:48
So literally, I went back to the story of him being born.
1:01:48
You wouldn't think you would forget the story of your first child being born.
1:01:53
And I went through it with his mom and we read it and we're like, "Oh my God, we forgot nine tenths of it, literally nine tenths of it."
1:02:03
And especially the emotional resonance of each of those moments, it was gone.
1:02:08
And so if you don't write these things down, they're gone.
1:02:08
You just have a general sense impression of them.
1:02:13
And I'll go even further, that memories can change very easily.
1:02:23
There's a lot of studies that show this.
1:02:23
So the longer you wait, the more other things change your memory.
1:02:27
And they change and they seem real, but our memories, every time we access them, become- Distorted. ... plastic, yeah. Yeah.
1:02:36
There's a great section of Rick Rubin's interview with Kendrick Lamar where Rick Rubin says, "Do take notes."
1:02:42
And Kendrick says that what he does is he writes down three or four words here and there and what he's trying to do is write down enough that then once he's writing his lyrics, he can get back to the emotion that he had in that moment.
1:03:00
Yeah, I was going to say, there's three.
1:03:00
So there's in the moment notes, where I might just write down story of this, story of that.
1:03:03
Then I'll go home at night and get the whole thing.
1:03:08
And sometimes I remember, like if I'm on an interview, I also try not to take notes during an interview because it makes somebody self-conscious about, it's about the connection.
1:03:12
You're here, look them in the eye.
1:03:16
If you were taking notes and looking at your questions, I'd be talking to myself.
1:03:19
So I'll try to remember everything because when it's too much I'll literally go to the bathroom and write everything down.
1:03:24
If it's not something where I'm recording, for example.
1:03:28
But even if I'm recording, there might be impressions or details that I want to note. So yeah, I'll do that.
1:03:32
I've used mnemonic devices sometimes.
1:03:32
There's a mnemonic device called the peg system, which is a way to memorize literally if I did it, you can give me 100 words and I memorize all 100 words by pegging them to these different things.
1:03:47
So I'll use the peg system to memorize things that I'll remember and then decode them later. But it's true.
1:03:51
I think if you're in the midst of an experience or something's happening, like I was talking to a friend on the phone today who's running for public office, and I was like, "Keep a journal, keep a diary of everything that happens, because whether you get elected or not, this is going to be a great story."
1:04:04
You wrote about the book, A Clockwork Orange, and here's what you said.
1:04:10
"It is poetry, it is social commentary.
1:04:10
It is disturbing, it is compelling. In short, it is art."
1:04:15
And I thought that that description was a good description of how I would describe your writing. Wow, thank you. Man, that means a lot.
1:04:28
What about that description has you going for it?
1:04:28
It was funny, it was like I felt like you were indirectly...
1:04:34
After prepping for this, I was like, what is he going for? What is he going for?
1:04:40
And I always try to get things down to a one-liner.
1:04:40
"It is poetry, it is social commentary, it is disturbing, it is compelling. In short, it is art."
1:04:45
Those words describe your writing so well.
1:04:50
Why is that what you're going for?
1:04:50
If you're the audience, and you're trying to write the work for you as the audience, then you're trying to write another book you love that's maybe in the spirit of Clockwork Orange.
1:04:57
I love John Fante's Ask the Dust.
1:04:57
It's one of my favorite books ever. Do you know that book? No. It's great. You've got to read it.
1:05:04
It's just about a self-hating writer, so you'll love it. It's the greatest thing.
1:05:11
He has a picture of his editor up on the wall and it was based on H. L.
1:05:11
Mencken, he talks to the editor all the time.
1:05:17
Only that editor sees his genius and he just walks around, getting shit on by life and his brain thinking I'm the greatest writer.
1:05:25
It's so funny, I love it.
1:05:28
It's written in the '30s, short version of how this all works.
1:05:28
And I'll get back to what you were saying, but Charles Bukowski was in the New York Public Library, a struggling postal worker and found a book by John Fante, Ask the Dust that I mentioned, read it and said, "Oh shit, this is how I want to write."
1:05:44
And so then he started writing in that same style.
1:05:50
And there's an older work by Norwegian writer called Knut Hamsun called Hunger, and I think that's what John Fante took for his thing.
1:05:54
So we're looking for these influences and I think that's the important thing, going back to the original thing about the controversial stuff, if you want your work to be liked by everybody and that's your goal to be universal in general, it'll almost likely be liked and appreciated by nobody.
1:06:16
And if you think, I love whatever, Clockwork Orange, Ask the Dust and I want to write just something as great as that, all the other people who have the same sensibility as you will like that.
1:06:27
And it's probably a lot of people, just like the secrets.
1:06:30
The secrets that you're sharing, probably a million people are holding a version of those same secrets, like the Carl Rogers quote, like the personal is the universal.
1:06:40
And I think another mistake people make is they try to go too broad to make sure everyone likes it.
1:06:44
I see you nodding because some of your students must do that. No kidding. I do that. I'm not above that.
1:06:47
I think it takes a kind of faith to say, "No, I'm going to tell this story exactly how it happened and in the purity of that people resonate with it."
1:07:06
And I struggle with this all the time.
1:07:06
Oh no, that's too specific.
1:07:06
No one's going to read that.
1:07:11
And I think that so much of my worst writing is downstream of that instinct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's true.
1:07:17
And taking those risks are usually where the rewards are.
1:07:25
There's a line that Kevin Kelly said on the show, that you should just tell your story with uncommon honesty.
1:07:34
I thought that was great advice.
1:07:34
And then edit it with uncommon brutality.
1:07:40
Talk to me about editing. Yeah.
1:07:40
So I run this writer's workshop just once a week I take.
1:07:44
So I just did an exercise with them where I said, "Take that first chopper you work so hard on and then cut it down as much as you can.
1:07:49
Take everything possible out, except what really needs to be there."
1:07:57
In the creative act, like Rick calls this the brutal edit.
1:07:57
So it's a version of that, I guess.
1:08:03
And so he does something.
1:08:03
It's funny, so many people do similar things like the metaphor of statues.
1:08:17
I said, "Just take everything out you can, then put back what only really, really needs to be there, if anything.
1:08:24
And then compare the two and see if it's better."
1:08:27
And as an example, I showed them of this writer.
1:08:27
I can email to you, where the first version of the ending of the story is like eight paragraphs and the last version is one paragraph. And it's so much better.
1:08:36
So going back to the Kevin Kelly thing, you tell it with the brutal honesty and all of that stuff.
1:08:43
And then take out everything that's unnecessary and then you have it.
1:08:48
And Rick with his, he talks about it in the book, but with artists, maybe they're trying to make a 15 song album, so they record 20 songs.
1:08:55
Instead of saying cut it down to 15, he'll say, cut it down to 10 songs and see what absolutely needs to be put back. Yeah.
1:09:07
It reminds me of, there's a line from Elon Musk where he's talking about the systems in a factory.
1:09:13
And he says that one of the biggest things that companies do is they're so quick to add things and so slow to remove them.
1:09:18
And he has this great one-liner where he says, "If you're not adding process back in that you've already taken out, you're not taking out enough process."
1:09:28
And I hear that that's what you're saying with writing too. Yeah, which is true.
1:09:33
I always have a cuts file.
1:09:33
I strongly believe you don't do in your writing, have another file or the bottom of your thing keep everything you cut because you might want to put it back in.
1:09:41
People have this weird thing where they think that's permanent, they're scared to take sentences or words or paragraphs out of what they're writing because they think somehow it's permanent.
1:09:50
But you can remove as much as you want and then see if it still holds up.
1:09:50
But you'll usually find you get closer to what you're saying by removing more.
1:09:53
Remember when I did one of my books, the German edition, I guess the German language expands, the words are so much longer, so you have to cut one third out of this book that's already finished and published for the German edition.
1:10:09
And so I sat there and I cut a third out.
1:10:09
I'm like, shit, I think it's better, yeah.
1:10:14
Tell me more about when you're editing, how is your writing routine different?
1:10:22
I don't know if there's much of a difference between writing and editing.
1:10:22
In fact, I would almost argue that the revising or the editing is where the writing really is.
1:10:30
I feel like if I showed anybody my first draft, the written version before I revised it would be horrible and unpublishable.
1:10:37
And I think the art is in the revising.
1:10:42
How often when you're writing and you're unsatisfied with what you've shared, do you think is a problem with your writing versus a problem with your thinking or are they the same thing?
1:10:52
The answer doesn't matter, in the sense that I'm only doing it to be satisfied myself.
1:10:52
Because think about this, if you release something you're not happy with and no one likes it, then it just sucks.
1:11:07
If you release something you love and no one likes it, it's still something you love.
1:11:11
Even if release something you're not happy with and everyone loves it, you have imposter syndrome.
1:11:15
So it's about me loving what I'm writing.
1:11:15
And I remember, sometimes I'm editing, my editor, I had an editor say, "This is just all listener stuff. No one can hear it."
1:11:23
It's about I want to be happy with it, I want to have a great relationship with it.
1:11:28
And that's all that matters.
1:11:34
I like that metaphor that you used where you talk about editing as ironing a shirt with wrinkles. Right, right. That was a good one. Yeah.
1:11:43
And again, that really is the way I really visualize that as I'm editing is I'm just smoothing it over and smoothing it over until there are no wrinkles and have all the wrinkles out.
1:11:50
And there's just one stubborn one you're just going over back and forth to get that.
1:11:53
And we've all been there before.
1:11:53
I find editing to be infuriating actually, at times.
1:11:57
There'll be moments when I'm working on a piece and some of the editing is fun.
1:11:57
But what drives me nuts is I feel like I'm getting close and then there's this one big block that actually needs to be reworked.
1:12:09
And I felt like I've gotten fairly close to the finish line and in reality, I haven't.
1:12:15
And I find that to just be very frustrating.
1:12:15
I usually just have to step away for a day.
1:12:18
Yeah, yeah, I think it's true.
1:12:18
There's so many pieces to that, but it's true.
1:12:22
Sometimes when I finish a draft or I finish something, like this is great and I go back and read and it's not great.
1:12:25
And that's part of the process, because I think another important part, we've talked about writing, we've talked about editing, but have you ever talked about being edited? No. Talk to me about it.
1:12:36
So I think another important part of the process is being edited.
1:12:36
And there are two sides to that and I think it's really important.
1:12:42
First of all, the only reason I think I write well is because I had editors who had something at stake with what I wrote.
1:12:46
As an example, if you're writing a book or an article and you hire an editor, they're just going to do their job and give you their editing notes.
1:12:57
However, if you're being published and there's an editor in a magazine or a newspaper or a website or there's a publisher of the book, well your editor has something at stake because if there's a mistake or something's wrong, that's on them.
1:13:07
So being edited by people who have something at stake have really made me a better writer because they're really, they're looking at it in a different way than even someone who's editing to make it better.
1:13:24
Their names, their reputation is also at stake here.
1:13:24
And so they really are going to look at things closely, carefully.
1:13:29
And if you're smart, you're going to look for the rules and patterning instead of resisting, you look for the rules and patterns of what they're noticing.
1:13:34
I always ask my editor, "Is there something you notice that recurs throughout?"
1:13:38
And it might be as small as saying, "You say the reason is because this, it should be the reason is, you don't need the word because after that."
1:13:48
I'm like, "Oh, cool, I'm going to put that.
1:13:48
That's just changed my writing for the rest of my life."
1:13:51
I remember my first editor at the Village Voice said, "We have to brush the academic dust off your writing."
1:13:56
I realized I was still writing school essays, college essays- All of us, all of us, yeah. ...
1:14:02
yeah, instead of writing compellingly like we talked about.
1:14:04
I still remember my first editor comments.
1:14:04
And so I think that one is it's important to be edited and the second is the ability to be editable, which means most people don't have that.
1:14:21
As you were saying, you were talking with someone, they were saying, "Oh, I was vulnerable. This is vulnerable.
1:14:25
What are you talking about?"
1:14:25
First I want to say this insane to me, but I'll have people sometimes ask me to read their stuff.
1:14:36
And I recently decided I'm going to stop doing that completely as I should have a long time ago because I might take a time.
1:14:40
I really do somebody a favor and read the book and give them notes, and they start resisting, defending what they already had there.
1:14:44
I'm like, oh, it's not that they're right or wrong, it's like just take the note and think about it.
1:14:49
So being editable really means trying to understand someone else's point.
1:14:55
And some people, especially first-time writers are very attached to what they said and what it means and what it's to them.
1:15:02
And someone is working with you with the same objective to make it better.
1:15:06
Everyone thinks they want a great editor to make their work better, but what happens when you disagree with what they're saying or what happens when it feels like it's going to be a lot of work or what happens when something really personal to you, you're being told that's not right, it's not landing right?
1:15:20
It's really hard, hard, difficult to take these notes from amateurs, first-time writers to like 20 time novelists.
1:15:25
I've even talked with people who want to leave their publisher because the publisher is trying to give them a book cover or a title that they don't want to have.
1:15:36
So again, not everyone's going to be in this position, but I think you're all going to be in the position of being edited in some way if you're writing.
1:15:46
And I want to make an important point, which I think isn't said enough, and I think it can create peace in the world. Peace in the world.
1:15:55
This is advice I give my writer friends who are being published the most often.
1:15:55
So if you have a difference of opinion with your editor, you have to remember you both have the same goal, which is for your work to be great and successful and they're your teammate.
1:16:03
And people get in oppositional relationships with their editors and start to butt heads and not realize like, oh, they just want this book to really be successful.
1:16:16
And their idea of making it successful is different than what my thought was.
1:16:19
So what are they seeing that I'm not seeing?
1:16:19
When you're getting edited, whether by friends or by editors, oftentimes you're going to get a piece of feedback that you just don't like, that you just feel is horrible and you think they're an idiot.
1:16:38
However, the problem is people look at the editor's solution instead of the problem underneath.
1:16:43
So most of the time, even if you don't like what they're saying or what their solution is, you can recognize there's something about that that's not working and they're offering you a solution you don't like.
1:16:53
And I think this is true of every single art form where getting feedback, ignore the solution, focus on the problem we're trying to address with the solution.
1:17:03
And then you can hear it a lot better instead of saying, "I would never do that.
1:17:03
That's not me, that's not my voice, that's not my style.
1:17:06
It's going to ruin the whole thing."
1:17:06
But something doesn't work, they're trying to fix.
1:17:10
When I'm working with an editor, what should I ask that editor to look for?
1:17:14
Because you've mentioned some very specific things of is because, stuff like that.
1:17:20
But should I ask them to look for those specific copy things or should I say, "Hey, look for where you get bored."
1:17:26
What do I ask when I ask someone to- Yeah.
1:17:32
My advice would be don't ask them anything, and here's why.
1:17:32
Another mistake people make when they're giving people their work to read is they say, when the reader reads your work, they don't have your voice to tell them what to look for or what you didn't do or what they should look.
1:17:46
So you should allow the editor or your friends reading it to have the same experience as an actual reader, which is tell them nothing and let the work speak for itself.
1:17:53
And then when they're done with their notes, you can then say, "Hey, what about this? Was that okay? Was this okay?"
1:17:56
Let them read it in the same way a reader does, which is purely.
1:18:00
And all your intention should be in the work, not in your explanation.
1:18:00
Very few people have been a great writer without being edited.
1:18:06
So find some way to have an editor that has stakes edit you.
1:18:10
Second thing I think you need to be great writer is deadlines.
1:18:17
I published a newsletter every single Monday for four or five years and there were Mondays when I just was like, how am I going to do this?
1:18:23
And somehow I was able to birth a piece, wasn't always a good one.
1:18:30
And I bet some of them were your best ones. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
1:18:35
I had to do a weekly column with the New York Times, and sometimes it was like that morning and nothing to write about.
1:18:40
And some of those ended up being like the best ones, because you had to think outside the box and come up with something creative.
1:18:44
If you were to teach a writing class, what would you focus on?
1:18:47
I'd start with a few exercise that would dispel their limiting beliefs about writing.
1:18:50
I personally don't believe that writer's block exists.
1:18:56
Like if I just said right now, "Let's all write something for three minutes," and we'll start the clock.
1:19:00
You could all write something.
1:19:00
It's performance pressure, that's the problem.
1:19:06
It's the idea of being seen and judged.
1:19:06
So I think I'd start with a few fundamental thoughts and ideas that would help remove our blockages to self-expression.
1:19:10
After that, I'd probably talk about time management and the things we discussed here, the other blockage of self-expression.
1:19:16
After that, it would be getting that first chapter down, then we'd be vomiting.
1:19:22
Then it would be the second draft, third draft, hater proof, publishing process, marketing process maybe. I don't know.
1:19:35
That's probably, that's probably just a sequential. I'm very linear.
1:19:39
Can we focus on that writer's block piece?
1:19:39
Because I think that there's something to that.
1:19:43
I think a lot of writer's block is in your first draft, you have the critic of, I think what you would say the third draft critic needs to be, and you're bringing that critic up too much.
1:19:54
No one's going to read it till your hater proof draft, till the third draft.
1:19:54
So it's just literally so many things that people do is distractions that create the writer's block, which is what's someone think? Is this good enough?
1:20:05
Am I qualified to do this?
1:20:05
Should I change that person's name or not?
1:20:13
What about the legal things on this?
1:20:13
What are the rules on this?
1:20:17
What should the title be?
1:20:17
Even deciding what the title of your work is is procrastination.
1:20:25
Because you know yourself how much sweat and labor and thought process is through the title.
1:20:31
Just get the whole book done.
1:20:31
Or should I do a proposal?
1:20:31
I'm a big advocate of write your book first.
1:20:36
And I told someone this now who has an amazing six figure deal, and they really said that it's partly because of this.
1:20:40
They wanted to do a proposal and I said, "Just finish the book first so you know what it is.
1:20:44
Your proposal will be better and you'll be able to sell it better because you know what it is."
1:20:47
Again, plenty of exceptions to this and most agents will disagree.
1:20:51
So the answer is all those self-doubting questions you have, put them in the work.
1:20:59
Don't use them as excuses not to work. Yeah.
1:20:59
One of the writer's block riffs that I have is that your best idea is right in front of your face.
1:21:05
And the reason I like this is I sort of point it right at the top of the nose.
1:21:13
You can actually see your finger.
1:21:13
And I think that a lot of times people think that they need to go look to other places for their idea.
1:21:20
Oh look there, look there, look there.
1:21:25
But sometimes it's just here.
1:21:25
And a lot of how I think about writing is by talking to other people.
1:21:30
By hey, having an experience that gives me a mirror onto what's right here actually changing my perspective, then I can see it.
1:21:35
And I find a lot of my writer's block is I'm not seeing the idea that was right in front of my face the entire time. Yeah.
1:21:45
And it's interesting because going back to what my syllabus is, the first exercise that tells people to get rid of their limitations is that thing I have them write takes place entirely in their interior world and separate from their thoughts.
1:21:53
It's to prove that you can not only write something that's interesting, but you can do it without any experiences, without any thoughts or original thoughts.
1:22:04
And that's super freeing because I think the key to not having writer's block and to writing is freedom.
1:22:10
Beautiful place to close.
1:22:10
Neil Strauss, thank you very much. Awesome, man. It was fun. Thank you. That was fun, man. Yeah, great.