I stop Twitter final week. It wasn’t precisely a cold-turkey quitting as a result of you possibly can’t stop the hen web site cold-turkey. The very best you are able to do is delete your account and wait 30 days for Twitter to course of your request.

I wish to think about a “hardcore” Twitter worker, somebody who sleeps on the workplace and by no means misses a possibility to inform the boss that he’s the Milo Minderbinder of Tony Starks, manually printing out, then shredding each Tweet I ever Tweeted since becoming a member of the positioning in 2007. However in actuality, I stop and all I acquired was this silly message.

My causes for quitting Twitter are difficult. Normally, it takes me months to course of difficult emotions and switch them into motion, however as of late there’s at all times a hack. In my case, the hack was a choice by Twitter to suppress / block / mark as spam hyperlinks from Substack. This put me within the awkward place of spamming myself, which might be meta, besides Fb is Meta now, which is a distinct story. Supposedly, Twitter reversed that coverage, however I actually don’t care anymore. Twitter has been an exhausting, demoralizing waste of time for a very long time, however the upsides like assembly cool folks and sharing the cool stuff I do are shortly vanishing into the abyss of Elon Musk’s ego.

ANYWAY, I stop. In the event you observe me on Twitter, you don’t anymore.

Severely, don’t be a hater. Choose up a duplicate of my novel, Not Protected for Work! It’s a lot enjoyable you’ll need to go away a evaluate on-line simply to brag about how a lot enjoyable you had studying it.

NSFW

One cool factor about writing a e-newsletter is that folks write again to you. E mail is interactive, sorta like social media. However electronic mail is slower than social media (a superb factor), and nonetheless sooner, simpler, and cheaper than snail mail (additionally good issues). Is electronic mail excellent? No. Nothing is ideal. But it surely’s an effective way for me to succeed in you, and it’s additionally an effective way for scenario normies to succeed in me. Right here’s an electronic mail I obtained from a scenario normie named Kris:

Rattling, I really like your writing. Simply discovered you a number of months in the past, complete fan. However I’ve a query and completely perceive should you don’t need to spill the key sauce. I run an organization and I’m a chemist, the rationale to say is that I’m only a particular person doing different issues. However what I love to do is write. I don’t suppose I’m all that good. So, no competitors. You talked about a number of editions in the past about your Alaska cruise journey. The way you seen conversations however then wove that into a fantastic narrative within the e-newsletter. My query, if you’re okay sharing your secrets and techniques, is, do you write down what you hear through the day so you possibly can write about it later? Or do you simply sit down later and suppose again? I really like the way you appear to note nice issues on the earth and write about them. Should be a trick of being a journalist. However I come throughout attention-grabbing issues overheard or seen through the day and suppose to myself how nice it could be to jot down about it. However then it vanishes, or I lose the affect and don’t write about it.

Make sense? Any recommendation? Or not. I’ll nonetheless love you.

Kris

First, I need to say that Kris made my day with this electronic mail. State of affairs Regular reaches greater than 2,600 folks twice every week, and whereas I get a number of optimistic suggestions, nothing beats a private observe. Thanks, Kris!

OK, now for the reply to your query, Kris. To start, there’s no secret sauce. In fact, that’s precisely what I’d say if there was a secret sauce, so I assume you’ll simply should belief me on that one.

The very best clarification of how I do what I do is in an interview I did with Jillian Hess at Famous. Jillian is an knowledgeable in how writers manage their materials. Within the interview, I talked about how a part of my writing observe is to jot down temporary notes. Very temporary notes! The concept behind my notes is to jot down down simply sufficient info to knock a reminiscence unfastened. From there, I write a narrative. It helps to maintain the time between jotting down the observe and writing the story to a minimal. Contemporary concepts are normally the most effective concepts.

Listed here are another issues that assist:

• I’ve been writing professionally for 20-plus years. Possibly you haven’t been writing so long as me, however I can guarantee you that the stuff I wrote early on sucked big-time. In different phrases, observe makes excellent higher. Tip: hold writing!

• I’ve honed my craft by writing journalism, essays, novels, screenplays, comedy sketches, advert copy, company mumbo jumbo, recipes, dangerous checks, and ransom notes. Whereas it’s good to select a lane, few working writers have that luxurious. However actually that’s a present as a result of every kind has one thing to show, and every lesson is one other software in your software field. Tip: experiment with new varieties and kinds!

• I learn to be a greater author. I additionally learn for enjoyable, or to be taught stuff. However every time I learn—or watch a film or TV present, for that matter—I’m at all times taking a look at how the author structured their story. I feel so much about construction as a result of that’s the factor that elevates a humorous anecdote right into a story. Tip: Learn so much, and skim with a vital eye for story!

Hopefully, this recommendation is useful, Kris. However let me go away you with this thought: I could possibly be mistaken! There’s no proper strategy to write a narrative. That’s truly one factor I hope everybody will takeaway from the interview I did with Jillian. See, it wasn’t simply the 2 of us speaking. The interview was a three-way dialog with Alex Dobrenko, who writes Each Are True.

Alex and I each write within the comedic private essay universe (CPEU™), however we come at our work from very completely different angles. I’m a note-taking minimalist. For me, it’s all course of, and course of is at all times a method to an finish. Alex, however, is a note-taking maximalist. He writes every little thing down and information it away for later. The key sauce, if such a factor exists, is that we hold going. That’s it. That’s the key: hold going.

After the AI ram-a-lama-ding-dong fiasco, I’m a bit behind on asking ChatGPT questions on pop music. I nonetheless owe KdD a flip on the AI wheel, however this week’s query goes to C.L. Steiner, who requested me to ask ChatGPT the next: “Why should I be an adolescent in love?”

I believed that was a superb query, however ChatGPT didn’t catch the reference. As an alternative, the AI supplied some strong (and questionable) courting recommendation🤖👇

I had a bit enjoyable with my Lyft driver. Or, possibly he had a bit enjoyable with me. Both method, a number of scenario normies referred to as this one in all my finest tales and I’ll take it! Learn Intelligent Driver right here.

You realize the drill. I’ve acquired questions, you’ve acquired solutions.

1. On the finish, I loathed Twitter, and leaving one thing you detest is definitely trickier than you may suppose. Have you ever ever left one thing you loathed?

2. Is Elon Musk the Milo Minderbinder of Tony Starks, or are your a kind of individuals who shies away from intellectual / lowbrow tradition jokes?

3. All kidding apart, I’m serious about writing a serious-ish essay about social media. Would you learn it?

4. Is there a secret sauce to writing a superb story? Severely, inform us your secrets and techniques! Or, simply share your writing recommendation.

5. ChatGPT’s courting recommendation is combined at finest, and but it’s higher than a number of courting recommendation I’ve heard. What’s the worst courting recommendation you’ve heard? Greatest recommendation?

6. What do you consider the artwork for Hypothetical Picnic? I feel it’s an AI software that Substack embedded into the content material editor, however I don’t keep in mind anybody speaking a few whiz-bang software that takes 30 seconds to generate bizarre photos primarily based on my textual content prompts. Am I enjoying with fireplace right here?

Depart a remark

My chat experiment continues. I’ll be internet hosting a one-hour chat Thursday, April 13, at 4pm Pacific time. Be there, or be some other place!