Friday
May282010
Review my childish draft of "Think, Try, Learn: A scientific method for discovering happiness"
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 10:35AM
I'm looking for people to comment on the first draft of my book "Think, Try, Learn: A scientific method for discovering happiness". It's 20 pages on treating everything in life as an experiment. Hopefully it will be a stimulating little read. Reply here or email matt@matthewcornell.org if you're game. The commitment is to read it within a week and share solid, constructive comments around how well I'm getting the idea across.
(Side note: TTL interpretation: First, I'm following Anne Lamott's suggestion in Bird by Bird to write a "shitty first draft" [1]. While I dislike the term - it feels personally demeaning, though she pulls it off - the spirit is 100% Think, Try, Learn. Think of many different ways to present the ideas, quickly Try one of them out to collect some data on how well it works, then Learn from it and iterate. Read the draft for more!
Second, you know my love for meta, so of course I'm treating the writing of the book itself as an experiment.)
(Side note: TTL interpretation: First, I'm following Anne Lamott's suggestion in Bird by Bird to write a "shitty first draft" [1]. While I dislike the term - it feels personally demeaning, though she pulls it off - the spirit is 100% Think, Try, Learn. Think of many different ways to present the ideas, quickly Try one of them out to collect some data on how well it works, then Learn from it and iterate. Read the draft for more!
Second, you know my love for meta, so of course I'm treating the writing of the book itself as an experiment.)
References
- [1] First, what's a better expression for this? I'm using "childish," in the positive sense - exploratory, small, enthusiastic, and playful. Second, here are a few links from googling the phrase: Reading Lists « Getting Things Done in Academia, How to concentrate on writing - Stepcase Lifehack and How to concentrate on writing - Bad Language.
Reader Comments (4)
It's not personally demeaning as much as it externalizes the work. By calling the draft shitty, you're not calling yourself shitty.
Other alternatives I've come across -- zero draft (before you write your first draft) and vomit draft (where you spluh your ideas on the page).
The very short book THINKING ON PAPER is useful for thinking about iterative drafting, similar to one of Mark Forster's ideas on his web site.
Thanks Mike for the point re: externalizing the work. Also for the Howard book, [ Thinking on Paper | http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0688077587?ie=UTF8&tag=masidbl-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0688077587 ]. I've just ordered it.
"Treating everything in life as an experiment...?" That actually sounds like my life. I would love to take a gander at any part of it that you are willing to... er... part with. Could be interesting to see if I really am a super experimenter, or just crazy.
bon
Thanks so much, Bon - I'd love to tap you for my next draft! Hey - I love your site and your perspective. I wonder if you'd like to suggest some brain-based experiments as an expert. They'd go into the next phase of our TTL platform (DaVinci). I'll use your contact form to make ... contact. Thanks again.