Why Listen?

There are two ways to make people read your work:

• •Write competently about topics people care about
• •Write brilliantly about anything

My strategy is to write about novel topics using angles so specific that there is no comparison. I will have the best short essay about the use of fuzzy-trace theory in reality TV competition settings.

That's not to say I'll never be brilliant. Statistically, I will. Here's the math:

Success = Talent + Luck

By trying my hand at short essays, I'm walking into a room of writers more talented than me. If the room were a Writers' Convention, and the event were a contest of authoring 100 essays given 100 topics, I would perform horribly, with a small number of five-star pieces.

But the number would not be zero. Out of 100 attempts, due to the inexorable variance that determines a decent chunk of any outcome, I'll hit gold at least once. The rate may be low, but the capacity to "luck into it" exists.

I'll fight to stack my odds. I'll flash my gold. Until then, welcome to my test kitchen. As head chef-in-training, I'll experiment to see what works. I'll serve some classics to get reps in with the foundational skills. I can't promise gourmet, but I can promise personal and cheap.

Here's a teaser of what could appear on the menu:

• •Game Design Principles to Use in Real Life
• •Writing to Strangers Through a Book
• •How Little Halloween Village Sets Are Designed
• •The Only 5 Political Facts Needed for Arguing
• •My Favorite Beliefs
• •Don't Donate to Hospitals: Effective Altruism for the Unaware
• •The Embarrassing Thing
• •Why Stare at One Painting for 10 Minutes Again and Again
• •Plausibility Horror Stories
• •Doom as a Cure for Workaholism
• •Giving Notes to Strangers