Writing Lesson To Learn From Animal Farm, Mindset Game, and More
+ you need not be happy and satisfied all the time, dammit.
Welcome one and all to the Sunday edition of Be Curious. I’m glad you are here.
Before we get into today’s letter, I want to ask you a question: how do you start a thing and be consistent in it (effortlessly)?
Like, really, sometimes I find it tough as hell to sit down and write. I know I will be glad just 10 minutes into the work. But still, I procrastinate sometimes.
So, in case you know the answer, comment down below or reply to the email.
Quick update: I have completed the article that I was writing for the science magazine. Drafting its one-paragraph pitch is still due.
Today’s issue at a glance
Writing: Writing lesson to learn from the book Animal Farm
History with a Message: Stephen King’s not-so-famous relationship with rejections
Book-ish: Here’s why you need not be happy and satisfied all the time
Let’s Muse: Is everything just a mindset game?
P.S. If the weather around you is pleasant, don’t take it for granted. Go out for a walk. You may not be able to see the sadness in the words. But it’s there.
Anyway, enjoy the issue :)
Estimated reading time: 5 minutesWriting
Animal farm—this short book is full of ups and downs as well as writing lessons.
I can count all the fiction books I have ever used a highlighter on on a single hand. It’s three.
Animal Farm happens to be one of them. Skipping both political and philosophical angles, let’s talk about the beauty of the text and marvel at its writing style.
Simple. Elegant. Direct. Engaging. Full of twists and turns.
Here’s one writing lesson we all can borrow from this marvellous book on satire.
A story need not be complex to be wonderful
Telling a story is more about presentation than facts and figures and plot and characters.
They are also important. But never more than the presentation.
I learnt that from this book. There are no fancy characters and it’s clearly not written with this long shelf life in mind.
Yet, this book is the one our teacher recommended to us when asked what we should read.
There are not many characters not definitely one many of us will remember like Harry Potter or Iron Man. I am not comparing but trying to get across the point that even an ordinary story shines like a diamond if it’s presented in an engaging style.
With a clear message in mind, obviously.
With attention becoming more miniature day by day, we can’t make everything epic. We have to settle for short stories most of the time.
That doesn’t mean we can’t create something wonderful. This book is a living example.
History with a Message
It’s the story of the child prodigy who haunted us with his work for decades.
There hardly would be any book lover who doesn’t know about Stephen King. He is called the King of Horror for a reason. But was it always like that for him?
Stephen King got the first rejection of his life at the age of 12. He wrote for years before getting that rejection.
His famous habit of pinning the rejections started. He would pin all the rejection slips he got onto the nail.
He did that for years until the nail could no longer hold more slips. He replaced it with an even bigger nail. And kept writing.
It wasn’t until two decades of writing that he got his first big break and never looked back again.
He has sold more than 350 million copies of his books, won multiple literary prizes and is still a big name in the world of books and movies.
Lesson: Have patience with results but be impatient with your actions. Had King not written for all those years without getting any results, we’d not get to read those masterpieces and be horrified.
Book-ish
Be unhappy and unsatisfied sometimes. Here’s why.
I was skimming through my favourite book, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Every time I read this book I am welcomed with novel ideas to ponder over. It was no different this time.
Take a look:
“Happiness is being satisfied with what you have.
Success comes from dissatisfaction. Choose.”
This is so true. If we were to be happy and satisfied all the time, we would go into either a seed-dormancy-like state or a pendulum-equilibrium-like state.
No growth and no movement respectively.
Striking the right chord between the two is the key—being grateful for what you have and being dissatisfied with the results of your actions. The latter will make you push yourself to your limits.
Let’s normalise being unhappy and dissatisfied. It’s fine to practise them every now and then.
Let’s Muse
Is everything just a mindset game?
I was reading about this thing called Parkinson’s Law. In simplest words, it means:
Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
No one is unaware of this mighty force’s effects. We might not know there was a name for it but we all have felt it nonetheless.
Remember that assignment you completed the last night? Or think about how concentrated you are the day before your exams.
You might also have asked yourself questions like “if only I had studied like this for the whole session” or “how cool this assignment would have turned out had I worked with this devotion for a couple of more days?”
Me too.
The perfect example is me writing this newsletter. I have committed that I will not miss even a single Sunday or Wednesday.
So there’s no option of not writing it. Nor there’s any excuse. That’s why I am writing this line just hours before sending it.
The best example, right? We all can procrastinate ‘til the end of this world if we were to live that long.
That puts forth a question: Is everything just a mindset game?
I think it is. I’ll bet most of you will agree with me on this.
Has something similar happened to you? Share in the comments below.
I hope you enjoyed Sunday’s issue of Be Curious. Share the post with your friends and family :) See you next week!