A short coaching monologue by Nicolas Cole advising writers to stop overthinking future problems and instead begin taking action. Cole relays a mentor's line from Chicago—"you can’t steer a stationary ship"—and uses a basketball/gym metaphor to show that you must ‘show up’ and put something in motion before refining advanced tactics.
Millionaire writer rules. Rule number one, you can't steer a stationary ship. All right, so this is actually a piece of advice that a mentor gave me back in Chicago. He said, cole, you can't steer a stationary ship. Meaning there's no point in overthinking. Oh, well, should I do this? Or this? You know, but what happens if I get three steps down the road? So many people try to solve problems they don't have yet. You know, they imagine what their life's going to be like 100 paces away when they haven't even taken the first step. So the whole big idea here is you literally can't improve something that isn't in motion. And this might sound really simple, but I've coached thousands, tens of thousands of writers at this point, and you would be amazed at how many writers love trying to solve problems they don't have yet. Okay, so the metaphor I like using is, imagine if you said, cole, I really want to get good at basketball. Like, great, I'll see you at the gym tomorrow. You're like, no, no, no, no. I don't need to go to the gym. I just want you to tell me, like, how does Kobe do that turnaround, jump shot? You're not even in the gym. You're not even showing up to the gym. So why are we talking about these advanced tactics? And everyone loves jumping to what's the advanced thing? What's the secret thing? What's the growth hack? What's the shortcut? But you literally can't improve something that isn't in motion. Step one, you can't steer a stationary ship.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
