David Perrell will be a guest on Dan’s podcast, How Do You Use ChatGPT?, in early 2024. As a prelude, we’re re-publishing this illuminating interview with him about his writing process. —Kate
How do you find something interesting to write about? Put another way, how do you make your writing interesting? David Perell knows.
If the internet is a great online game, Perell is one of its grand warlocks. He’s fashioned a career as “The Writing Guy,” writing essays, building a popular podcast, and creating the premier course on writing on the internet, Write of Passage.
To make his writing interesting, he relies on an ingredient known as surprise. He wraps surprise into each sentence of his essays. He gathers it by constant searching, and he searches by echolocation. He throws out his verbal candidates in conversations and on Twitter at a prodigious, unrestrained clip. He’s looking for ideas and ways of expressing them that raise eyebrows, that generate so many reactions they can’t be ignored.
Perell is a small investor in Every, so it should be said I have reason to be impressed by him. But it’s not just me—Perell is deeply influential. If you read this article closely, you’ll hear echoes of David’s system in the approaches of other writers like James Clear and Robin Sloan. There is much about it that I—we—can learn from.
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Want the full text of all articles in RSS? Become a subscriber, or learn more. ### Summary - David Perell is a writer, podcaster, and course creator who has established himself as an influential voice on the art of writing. - His work centers on the concept of surprise, and he has developed a keen awareness of how people receive his ideas through conversations and social media. - To cultivate interesting ideas, Perell talks through his thoughts with trusted friends and contacts, relying on their reaction to guide him toward insight, and he tweets experimental ideas to gauge their popularity. - Perell adheres to a strict writing routine, devoting 90 minutes each morning to writing without distraction; he works on multiple pieces at once to stay engaged with his work. - He gathers ideas for his writing from many sources, and curates and expands on those ideas in Evernote. - Finally, Perell relies on distinct visual elements, including colorful drawings, to create distinct sections in his essays. #### By Dan Shipper / Superorganizers