Matt’s Mix Tape, Vol. 101

Hi, I’m Matt Tillotson and this is Matt’s Mix Tape, a weekly Mix of ideas on writing, content strategy, and personal tech for the Creator Age.

This week’s Mix:

• The weirdest flex on Twitter

• How to write about the books you read

• Write with spice: sangfroid

• Magicians, writers, and the curiosity gap

• The value of writing sludge

This week’s Mix Tape logo

It might be the weirdest flex I read on Twitter:

”I quit drinking coffee.”

Congrats?

If you’re quaffing down 5-6 cups a day and your sleep is wrecked, then I understand. Go on with your uncaffeinated conquering.

But generally I agree with this philosophy:

Brady Holmer @B_Holmer

“Caffeine is so addicting, so I gave it up.” You gave up one of the most well known cognitive and physical performance enhancers we know of? Your loss 🙃😁

Teddy Roosevelt allegedly drank a gallon of coffee per day. He died at 60. Those two facts may or may not be related, but Teddy clearly had an issue.

Personally, I’m at 1-2 cups a day, so, as I sip contentedly, today’s logo is a ode to coffee.

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How to easily create unique and valuable content from the books you read

The story doesn’t end when the book does. 

I’m a book nerd. But I struggle at times with how to turn the books I read into useful content.

On Twitter, I asked how people write about the books they read, and got some excellent responses from Charlie, George, Ayomide, Coach Willis, and others.

Sharing how a book changed you changes your reader. Here’s how to write about the books you read.

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Write with spice: sangfroid

Simple writing is best. Short sentences, common words. Simplicity reduces friction, easing the path from your ideas to the reader’s understanding.

But …

Sprinkling in an unusual word adds spice to your writing. It can jolt your reader awake.

This week, I like the word “sangfroid:” 

“composure or coolness, sometimes excessive, as shown in danger or under trying circumstances.”

Bob displayed his sangfroid as the world burned around him.

Write with a little word spice now and then, but be cool about it. Keep your sangfroid.

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Magicians, writers, and the curiosity gap

June Lin, juxtaposing the way magicians and storytellers use curiosity to create emotional payoffs:

June Lin 🛳 @heyheyjune

🌌 There's space—a curiosity gap—between what we know and what we want to know. 🪄 Storytellers and magicians expand and contract this space to great effect. 🌉 What magic tricks show us about how to close the gap... #ship30for30

The curiosity gap is emotional. Tying up loose ends as a story concludes provides the framework to give the intended emotion plausibility. Tidy answers help readers suspend disbelief to embrace the writer’s intended emotional resonance.

Plot points serve the emotion. Readers will remember how your work made them feel.

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The value of creating sludge

If you create regularly, you often write poorly and have bad ideas.

This is progress!

The most creative and prolific people regularly create sludge, says Julian Shapiro:

Ed Sheeran and Neil Gaiman are in the top 0.000001% of their fields. They're among, say, 25 people in the world who consistently generate blockbuster after blockbuster.

If two world-class creators share the exact same creative process, I get curious.

I call their approach the Creativity Faucet:

Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile of piping is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives. 

Because your pipe only has one faucet, there's no shortcut to achieving clarity other than first emptying the wastewater.

Let the bad stuff flow. The good work lies behind it, but only if you embrace the lousy stuff first.

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This week’s (not from) Florida photo

I know. It’s getting absurd.

We will return to Florida photos from Florida. I swear. But it’s not my fault Mackinac Island is so picturesque.

So here’s another photo from the island, taken from Fort Mackinac, which was once seized by the British in the War of 1812.

And who could blame the British? I mean, this view …

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Welcome to five new subscribers

Including Mike and Edward*.

And thank you to you for reading. 

I’d love to hear from you—please say hi, ask a question, whatever—anytime.

*I brazenly stole this idea to welcome new some readers by name from Dylan, and you should definitely check out his idea-stuffed newsletter for creators, Growth Currency.