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DO THE WORK! - Coggle Diagram
DO THE WORK!
Beginning
Start Before You’re Ready
Don’t prepare. Begin.
The enemy is Resistance.
Good things happen when we start before we’re ready.
A Research Diet
You’re allowed to read three books on your subject. No more.
Let the ideas percolate.
Let the unconscious do its work.
Stay Primitive
The creative act is primitive.
Its principles are of birth and genesis.
Swing for the Seats
If you and I want to do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small.
BIG!
Lunch with My Mentor
God made a single sheet of yellow foolscap exactly the right length to hold the outline of an entire novel.
Don’t overthink. Don’t overprepare. Don’t let research become Resistance.
Outline it fast. Now. On instinct.
Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single page.
Three-Act Structure
Break the sheet of foolscap into three parts: beginning, middle, and end.
How Leonardo Did It: Last Supper
Supper table stretching across the width of the canvas.
Jesus standing in the center, apostles arrayed in various postures left and right.
Perspective and background tailing off behind.
Rewriting
There’s no such thing as writing, only rewriting.
Get your idea down on paper. You can always tweak it later.
Start at the End
Work backwards. Begin at the finish.
Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.
Start with the theme. What is this project about?
Thoughts and Chatter
When I say “Don’t think,” what I mean is: don’t listen to the chatter.
Those are not your thoughts.
They are chatter.
They are Resistance.
Midle
The Universe Is Not Indifferent. It is actively hostile.
When you and I set out to create anything—art, commerce, science, love—or to advance in the direction of a higher, nobler version of ourselves, we uncork from the universe, ineluctably, an equal and opposite reaction
That reaction is Resistance.
Resistance is an active, intelligent, protean, malign force—tireless, relentless, and inextinguishable—whose sole object is to stop us from becoming our best selves and from achieving our higher goals.
We can never eliminate Resistance. It will never go away. But we can outsmart it, and we can enlist allies that are as powerful as it is.
We must respect Resistance,
One thing we can never, never permit ourselves to do is to take Resistance lightly, to underestimate it or to fail to take it into account.
Fill in the Gaps
Seven or eight
major spaces
major movements
major sequences
swings of momentum
That’s what we need now. We need to fill in the gaps with a series of great entertaining and enlightening scenes, sequences, or spaces.
Do Research Now
Now you can do your research. But stay on your diet.
Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time.
Research can be fun. It can be seductive. That’s its danger. We need it, we love it. But we must never forget that research can become Resistance.
How Screenwriters Pitch
ORIENTATION
ENEMIES AND ALLIES
Our Enemies
Resistance
Activities that most commonly elicit Resistance
Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.
Any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower
Characteristics of Resistance
Resistance Is Invisible
Resistance is a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.
Resistance Is Insidious
Resistance will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man.
Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.
Resistance Is Impersonal
Resistance Is Infallible
Resistance will unfailingly point to that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.
The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
Resistance Is Universal
Resistance Never Sleeps
The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.
Resistance Plays for Keeps
Resistance aims to kill.
Rational thought
Rational thought is the artist or entrepreneur’s worst enemy.
Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego.
We want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.
Friends and Family
The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are.
The last thing we want is to remain as we are.
Prepare yourself to make new friends. They will appear, trust me.
Our Allies
Stay Stupid
Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.
Don’t think. Act.
We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.
Be Stubborn
Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop.
We’re in till the finish.
Blind Faith
Our mightiest ally is belief in something we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or feel.
Passion
When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.
Assistance
Resistance is the shadow, its opposite—Assistance—is the sun.
Friends and Family