A method for people who feel overwhelmed to start writing more on paper—which makes everything else easier
I’ve written a guide which shows how to use notebooks for clearer thinking: one notebook, simple practices, no elaborate systems. Written to help you stop re-thinking the same things and close open loops.
https://craigconstantine.gumroad.com/l/hand-write-think-better
ɕ
I’m currently in the Introduction from Will Stone’s translation of, Montaigne by Stefan Zweig. Two things:
First, a nit about getting the right ideas into our minds when we read. Not a criticism of authors’ (such as Stone) word choices, but rather of our thinking correctly as readers.
Stone quotes Zweig as, “How to keep humanity intact in the throes of bestiality?” Stone’s translation is from 2015, and our current English usage carries sexual connotations. But I had a hunch that Zweig had something like “in the way of beasts” in mind since he was writing in German, in Brazil, in 1941, amidst the global throes of WWII.
It took me just a few moments to get an LLM to show me that Zweig almost certainly wrote «Bestialität»—which in Zweig’s German would have meant brute savagery or barbaric cruelty with no modern (circa 2025) sexual connotation. And in the larger context of the brutality of the war, that connotation makes perfect sense.
Second, further along Stone quotes a vivid metaphor from Zweig relating to suicidal ideation:
[…] always in moments of impotence it emerged, surging powerfully upwards like a dark rock whenever the tide of passions and hopes in his soul ebbed.
Relax; I’m not suicidal. I’m only remarking on the sublime perfection of that metaphor.
ɕ
Remember we employed a visual to help us understand this. We said that the Dream is like a tree in the middle of a sunny meadow. The tree casts a shadow.
~ Steven Pressfield, from Writing Wednesdays: Gotta Do It
slip:4usego2.
I find Pressfield’s metaphor to be striking. The tree in the meadow casts a real shadow. I was struck by the layers in this metaphor: light and darkness, the singular clarity of lone tree in an open space as a symbol of a life’s purpose, the proportional relationship of the larger the tree the larger and darker the shadow, and that one’s ability to avoid or at least escape the shadow is a choice we make.
By extension then, if one attempts to nurture multiple callings, visions or projects, one has multiple big trees. That’s at least a copse of trees whose shadows merge together creating something much more significant to avoid or escape from.
ɕ
Writing is essentially donkey work, manual labor of the mind. What makes it bearable are those moments (which sometimes can last for weeks, months) when the book takes over, takes on a life of its own, goes off in unexpected directions.
~ John Gregory Dunne
slip:4a1530.
Writing issues of 7 for Sunday has become familiar (not to be confused with “easy”). I have a checklist which I use when I’m writing each issue. It’s as much for scratch-paper thinking, as it is for ticking off completed steps. Originally, the checklist had a lot of notes about formatting, what goes where, how to typeset the specific parts, image sizing, etc. all nuts-and-bolts stuff. As I’ve modified it, it’s now mostly signposts and I use it to celebrate each phase of the issue’s development.
Today, I was down to just a couple of these checklists and I hit print. How many copies? Without hesitation I printed 20—because that would be checklists through issue 150. It simply struck me as interesting that I’ve moved beyond “should I continue” and even beyond “can I continue” for this neat little weekly missive that I enjoy putting together.
ɕ
These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.
~ Steven Pressfield
slip:4a1527.
Exasperated, the therapist finally suggests that she could stop writing. “Stop?” says the writer, blinking in surprise.
~ Mandy Brown, from A battle with the gods
slip:4uaowi8.
The challenge is to realize that the error I’m making is in thinking the writing part sucks. Of course it’s not easy— that’s what makes it fun. (Is the lesson I need to continue to work to internalize.)
ɕ
The Fourth Rule of the Artist’s Journey is: It’s for life.
~ Steven Pressfield, from The Artist’s Journey Is a Lifetime Engagement
slip:4usete19.
Because that means there’s not going to be an end, so I better get my stuff sorted.
ɕ
There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is resistance.
~ Steven Pressfield
slip:4a1477.
As some of you know, I write a weekly email that isn’t related to my podcasting efforts. On Sunday, Sept 1, issue 100 of 7 for Sunday will go out. (See https://7forsunday.com to sign up or to simply read any issue.)
From the first issue of 7 for Sunday, I’ve always wondered if I’d make it to 100, and I’m glad I stuck with it. Some weeks it was a right struggle to get it done. In a very real sense, knowing there were readers out there gave me a goal to get through some dark days. Yes, external validation is not a great idea. But also, the life preserver that saves you is necessarily thrown by another.
Thanks to a suggestion from 7 for Sunday reader Wayne, the centennial issue is about books. 7 books, of course. Each book is presented with bibliofervor (the urge to leap out of one’s chair, race to find a friend, and press a book into their hands, see Issue № 60.)
Sometimes people express amazement at all that I get done—
Please realize that I struggle just as much as everyone does to create. And, boy howdy!, do I hope that any part of anything I ever do somehow helps you, in even the slightest way, to move forward!
I appreciate your time and attention, and I don’t take it for granted.
ɕ