Isaac- Assignment 19

"Don't drain the well."

This was the third item on one of my very favorite Cracked articles, and while that may not be the most technically romantic setting for me to find a piece of mindblowing advice that doesn't drain its pertinence. The matter of who to attribute the advice to Gladstone, the author of the article, or Hemingway, since the advice is a paraphrase from him, but for this particular topic the issue is moot.

Now, what is meant by "don't drain the well" is that you should stop writing before you've put everything you want to on the page. This was a novel idea to me when I first saw it, but upon reflection I was struck with the fact that I was much more prone to writer's block when returning to piece to expand upon upon it or revise it than I was initially writing it. So the advice from a column about how to be a better writer did in fact make me a better writer.

But then I began to consider other applications of this advice. Why not apply it to other areas I was less-than-spectacular at? You see, it's all based on what the well is for. For example, I often had trouble talking with friends because I didn't know what to say. So I decided to try to leave out discussing one or two things I wanted to talk about so that next time I would have a jumping-off point for conversation. This strategy works with exercise as well- get yourself motivated, then work out but don't completely exhaust yourself, that way you retain some motivation to exercise again the next day. The method probably has many more applications, but writing/creating, talking with people, and working out are the three things I've used it for so far. It's very useful, not to mention concise and poetic.


*For anyone curious, here's a link to the article: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-best-pieces-writing-advice-i-didnt-get-in-school/