I was writing yesterday in a predefined template. Templates are great for organizing your information, which in my case, I considered a help. I had lots of details and data to include that would easily be broken down according to the template.
It didn’t work.
Okay, it helped me get started with my ideas and information. But soon, I found I was listing the same things twice, in different sections. I ran into a cognitive stumper, not sure where the info made sense listing, and worse, I wasn’t sure what if my message was going to get across. I was in a writing ‘dip’: I had gone down the road till I hit a cul-de-sac, and couldn’t see a way out. Exactly what Seth has written about in his book The Dip.
So I didn’t save myself any brain-work by going with the template. I still had to do hard thinking about my information and message. Then I had to act on it and clean up the mess. I ended up combining the sections, tossing some info, and make the best stuff better. Again, exactly what Seth talked about in the book about how to get out of the dip–the path often is not there, you have to make it on your own.
So when you hit a cul-de-sac, you have four choices:
- Go back to the beginning (give up)
- Park the car (and settle for good-enough)
- Drive back up the road till you find a different route
- Or make a new road (even if it means driving thru someone’s yard)
The point is that these are things we do every day. The Dip has always existed, Seth has only pointed it out. Next time, we’ll talk about the implications he raises about The Dip.