Monday Musings - I'm cooking up something new

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Hi friends,

One of the weirder things about me is that I handwrite my to-do list on a restaurant napkin every morning. Standard pieces of paper are too big, the lines on an index card are too constraining, and Post-It notes get crumpled up in your pocket. But restaurant napkins? Just right.

First on the list today: "Send a letter."

I’m going to share some of the best lessons I’ve learned from working on a new project of mine called Writing Examples.

Writing Examples will be a celebration of great writing. Every article will give you X-Ray vision into the tools and tricks that history's best writers have relied upon. Analysis usually means dry, but instead of going technical, we've gone technicolor with videos, text-explainers, and summary graphics.

But before I get into the lessons, I want to remind you that the final Write of Passage cohort starts on October 7th. This is our last goodbye. Our graduation tour.

If you’re thinking of joining but have some questions, I’m hosting a free Q&A on Monday, September 16th. Register here. ​

Now, onto the lessons. The published examples will be paired with text and sometimes videos, but today, I'm sharing some summary graphics to give you a sense for what's coming.
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1. How to Describe a Party (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

One colorful anecdote is worth a thousand generalities: the more specific the scene, the more you can say about the whole picture.

2. How to Title a Book (James Clear)

Atomic Habits has sold 20 million copies and was the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in 2021 and 2023. It’s found a permanent place on the recommended shelf of just about every airport bookstore, and its success indicates that people do judge books by their covers.

Is it any coincidence that it has the perfect cover for a self-improvement book?

3. How Symbols Tell a Story (George Orwell)

This is the first sentence of 1984, and it tells you exactly what the rest of the book is going to be about. Orwell's observation that the clocks were striking thirteen describes the dystopian world of Big Brother and Doublespeak, a world defined by the distortion (or inversion) of truth.

Instead of describing everything that’s upside down and dishonest about the world of 1984, Orwell chooses the 13th hour as a symbol to show you that something is off and that nobody’s questioning it.

The plan is to publish an example every week, and if you want me to send them to you whenever ones goes live, click here.

Have a creative week,

— David Perell

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P.S. Recorded a How I Write episode with Sam Altman last week, and it'll go live on September 25th.

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