I Made It: AJ Jacobs"creative method
Discover AJ Jacobs' creative process for publishing his four New York Times bestsellers, which includes how he thinks up ideas, researches, and writes the stories of his life.
There's a healthy list of actors who practice staying as they are on- off-camera while filming their work.
While it seems a bit excessive to be so committed to never leaving, the hard work pays off -- in salary real, authentic, and the awards that are presented at shows for red carpets.
The work that is done by AJ Jacobs , successful author, speaker, as well as editor at Esquire Magazine, isn't any anything else.
AJ also takes his work -- and his role- very seriously.
In fact, for each of his six published books, AJ assumed the role of the subject and embarked on an actual quest while writing his books.
Being a character has been rewarded for AJ as well. He's earned the title of New York Times Best Seller more than 4 times in the past.
We were fortunate to have the privilege of sitting down with AJ who shared with us his creative process to write his acclaimed books.
With no further delay we'll dive right in.
What happens when AJ thinks up book concepts
The first way AJ starts his brainstorming process is by drawing inspiration and ideas directly from his own life.
That's the way he came up with the topic for his first book, The Know-It-All Book: A Man's Humble Struggle to become the most intelligent person on the Planet .
He got the idea via his father, who has always was a reader and a seeker of knowledge. His father was reading his ways through his family's Encyclopedia collection, and he reached the middle of the alphabet B. AJ decided to "finish his work and take this stale air from our family's history."
And it was there was born his first novel idea came to life, a concept AJ attributes to his dad.
"I believe that it was the perfect example of using your family and what's all around you to inspire," the author says. "I wouldn't have ever had the idea myself . . . This was something that my father did."
Another approach AJ comes up with new ideas (pun intended) is by thinking up the most ideas he can and then using the elimination process.
In the case of his first book, for instance, as He came up with the idea to write his next book the author sat down and brainstormed ideas, but they were eventually eliminated.
"I had a lot of ideas for books, and I'm not even able to remember them, but none of them came through," he divulges. "Either I rejected them and my editor did, or even my wife put the kibosh on the idea because it was too much of a nightmare."
After he had landed on the concept of his second book, the Year of Biblical Living: One Man's Quest for a Year to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible that was to live a life that literally followed the bible for a year but it was difficult in committing to this.
Because of the controversial nature of the topic, AJ had a difficult to decide whether to pursue the issue.
"It's highly unpopular," he explains. "That was extremely stressful and I wasn't sure if to take it on to do it or not."
AJ thought to himself "Do I really want to make this decision? It could be frowned upon by both the sides. There is no one who will be pleased trying to mix religion and humor."
While it wasn't an easy option, ultimately it was AJ's choice to resonate with his viewers.
However, he realized that by now, as AJ is doing something every creative should frequently is.
He confirms the book's concept before going all-in. In the case of AJ the way he validates his book concept is through speaking with anyone he can about his latest book idea.
"One thing I do is to inform the most people I can about the concept," he explains. "I take a look at their eyes and see whether they are glowing . . . I can tell if they're asking follow-up questions because sometimes they do not."
If their eyes don't "light up" AJ takes it as an opportunity for them to not explore the idea of a book.
To keep his creativity authentic, AJ changes the subject topic from book to which lets him repeat the similar creative process across books.
"If you can take on projects creatively that are completely other than the topic, it gives you more flexibility to follow the same experience," AJ coaches.
Speaking of his repeatable process We'll take a closer look at the next step AJ is taking of doing study.
How AJ is able to conduct his book research
AJ conducts his book research by literally immersing himself in the topic. Each book writing session is transformed into a new personal quest and adjusts his life to focus entirely on researching and capturing his experience for his novel.
For instance, while writing "The Year to Live Biblically AJ did not break his pledge and decided to commit to the full length of a year to follow the bible as literally as he could.
Then, to log the events of his research, AJ keeps two journals, one for his personal journal and the other for the research of his projectwhich is still in use today.
"I always keep track of what's happening within my own life as well as what's happening directly in the project research," he shares.
Though it can be a little overwhelming to assume all the duties during the course of his research, AJ does it for an excellent reason. The term he uses is "steelmanning," a way to show a different perspective which you do not agree with more effectively than anyone else can.
"I love the idea of steelmanning as I believe it just makes our world an even better place to live," He thinks. "That's how we move forward."
and "move forward" he does by making several bestsellers. We'll take a look at AJ's complete creative procedure.
The creative process of AJ
AJ loves the initial two aspects of his process the most, which have already been covered -- brainstorming and research.
"Coming up with ideas it's among my favorite things," he pronounces. "Brainstorming . . . 100 books in which 99 of them are bound to suck, but one will hopefully be interesting."
"I enjoy researching topics," AJ continues as the author reflects on his research for his most recent work, Thank for a Thousand: A Gratitude Travel . "Interviewing the designer of a coffee lid and going on a trip to Colombia, South America to meet the farmers. It was amazing."
The final stage of the creative process -- writing itself -which is the least preferred since it is a lonely process and also comes with a delayed audience reaction. "A large portion of it is simply . . . The feeling of being on your own and not receiving immediate feedback," AJ reflects.
"When I talk in public, I simply enjoy . . . seeing people's eyes or the laughter that they are interested," he says. "And when you're writing that's not gonna be released for the next year, I find it very frustrating."
To add to that the stress, sometimes the book-writing process is slowed down due to the nature of the topic, as it did when he wrote his book The Relatives: Adventures Up and Down the Family Tree of the World .
"Partly it took so long to write because the book was about this idea of creating a global family tree that will connect all people on Earth to one family tree," AJ explains. "So, you, me, Barack Obama, Nicolas Cage, everyone."
In terms of writing his novel, AJ starts writing with a general expectation of the direction he's heading however in the majority of cases his style of writing is made up.
"When I write, I make an outline that kind of vaguely says where I'm going to end up," he shares. "But the majority of what I write is improv. While I write, I wander off on little side trails, but I try to figure out exactly where I'm going."
Before he presents his finished product, there's one major process left to cover that is editing.
While it's a big project to take on the editing procedure of AJ is easy. When editing, he simply solicits feedback from his peers and then uses the sum of their responses as signals about where to edit.
"I'll forward it to 10 friends, and I'll ask: What components do you think are the most interesting, and which areas do you think are the most boring?'" AJ divulges. "I'll use the median of those, then cut off the dull parts and ensure that I keep the parts that you find interesting."
It seems simple enough, similar to his perspective about luck and hard work.
How AJ views the importance of hard work as well as luck
In the case of success, AJ says that "hard perseverance and hard work are required."
"You will not succeed without them," he warns. "But they're not enough."
AJ thinks you'll also need luck and a little luck to enhance your efforts This is what AJ (luckily) was blessed with the moment his most recent novel was released.
"You are also dependent on luck and I'm sure that . . . in the same week my first bestseller hit the shelves and there was probably 50 other books that came out, which were just as great, if not better than mine," He acknowledges.
"But I was able to get breaks" AJ gives credit. "I met the person who was in charge of the publicity for the publishing house. I knew the person who books "Good Morning America and I joined that. I think you need both."
That's not all the guidance AJ offers us today. The author has a few additional words of wisdom to share.
The advice of AJ's fellow creators
AJ gives us pearls of wisdom, which have a theme nestled in these two words: be creative.
Why? Some reasons. First, it helps you from a rut in your mind.
"The more experimental you are more adventurous, the better" AJ advises. "I consider that we all are prone to doing it the same, and that is why we create these . . . neural ruts, neural pathways that get us thinking similar ways."
This will provide you with greater variety in your life and, ultimately, lead to more happiness.
"The more possibilities you have to play -even if it's just something small within your daily routine, like trying a new toothpaste or working differently -- the more beneficial it will be in terms of creativity and happiness," AJ urges.
If AJ hadn't taken his own advice, he would not have written such amazing imaginative works and research -- in written form.
And that, I think everyone can agree on, would've been a shame.