Why Curiosity Drives Great Writing: A Bestselling Author's Journey by Eliot Peper by Kazuki Nakayashiki

Why Curiosity Drives Great Writing: A Bestselling Author's Journey by Eliot Peper

Kazuki Nakayashiki

Nov 1, 2024 10:43 PM

Summary

Introduction of Eliot Peper (00:09-00:36): Eliot Peper is introduced as a bestselling author known for speculative thrillers such as Foundry, Aether, and Cumulus. His works have received acclaim from publications and notable figures.
Transition to Writing Career (01:13-01:43): Eliot shares his career journey, from research assistant in environmental policy to entrepreneur, venture capital, and ultimately becoming a writer. He credits his love for reading as a driving force behind his writing.
Writing Philosophy (02:13-03:18): He emphasizes that his novels stem from ideas he wishes he could read. Writing serves as a way to explore compelling stories that resonate with his interests.
Novel Writing Process (12:04-15:03): Eliot discusses the variability in writing time, averaging a book a year, balancing ideation, drafting, and the publication process. He stresses the need to finish projects to grow as a writer, using cooking analogies for completing creative endeavors.
Source of Inspiration (40:23-43:47): Eliot shares that his ideas come from reading, conversations, and life experiences rather than AI. He finds brainstorming valuable and views discussions with friends as integral to developing his plots.
Impact and Legacy (1:01:49-1:05:00): Eliot describes his legacy as offering enriching experiences through his novels. He believes that the true magic happens when readers connect with his stories, regardless of when that occurs, and he sees his writing as a gift for future generations.
Final Thoughts (57:52-58:58): He advises aspiring writers and founders to trust their instincts over external advice, emphasizing basic principles like maintaining health and financial stability while pursuing creative endeavors.

Transcript

Welcome back to Grasp Talk. Today we have amazing speaker, Eliot Peper, a bestselling author renowned for his speculative thrillers that explore the intersection of technology and culture. Some of his novel works include Foundry, Aether, Bale, Bandwidth, and Cumulus. His novel has praised from various publications such as New York Times Book Review, Popular Science, San Francisco Magazine, Business Week, and so on, and also from notable figures

like Seth Godin and Cory Doctorow. Also, you can find his writing in publications like Harvard Business Review, Scout, TechCrunch, Vice, and Buzz. Beyond writing, he has advised several tech companies, entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, and so on. So today, we'd like to ask him about his career, writing process, and how to come up with the novel ideas, and how to imagine the future, and manage ideas, and storytelling, and so on.

So thank you for joining today, Eliot. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So first of all, we are like curious about your career, especially what made you a writer. And because from your LinkedIn profile, your career started as research assistant, and like you're researching on international environmental treaties, and then you became business development associate, and started your company, then became an entrepreneur

in this sense, venture capital, then you became a writer. So we wonder what happened, and what made you a writer? Yeah, that's so funny. I have not updated my LinkedIn in quite a while. I think there are two answers to that question. I mean, the first is that basically what made me a writer is I've always been a very enthusiastic reader. And I continue to think of myself as a reader first and a writer second. So I've always just loved to read.

Since I was a little kid, I would always sort of hide in the bookstore shelves in the library stack so that my parents couldn't find me to take me home because I just wanted to, you know, sort of explore and pull books off the shelf. So I loved, when I was very little, I loved being read to, you know, fairy tales and all the rest. So I've always just loved reading. And so all of my writing comes from a place of having an idea for a book I would want

to read, and then trying to solve my own problem by writing it, right? So that's really where all my books come from, is I'm just like, oh man, wouldn't this be a wonderful novel? Wouldn't this be like a really powerful story that I would want to read? And then I'm writing it almost for myself as the reader. And then to the extent that other people enjoy them, it's really just that maybe they share my taste or something like that, right? So that's

really sort of the core emotional place that I come from as a writer. But, you know, I'd say that, like, the way to connect the, in retrospect, the way to connect the dots of, like, the different kinds of work I've done is really just me following my own curiosity. So when I was in graduate school, I went to graduate school to study international environmental policy, basically international relations.

And so I worked briefly in a research lab for David Victor, who's a, he's the lead author on the policy side for the UN's IPCC climate change reports, right? So he's an expert in sort of the geopolitics of energy and climate. And I really thought that was just a fascinating area. And I thought that wouldn't it be cool to research that area, to learn more about why treaties fail and how you can set up better agreements between countries to try to protect the planet.

It turned out that I was not well suited for actually doing the policy research. Basically, I got my dream job working for him and then I hated the work, not through any fault of his. He was my best professor in graduate school. But, you know, reading detailed treaties and then sort of having theoretical arguments about what went wrong felt really divorced from doing work where you could see the practical impact of what

you were seeking to achieve. It just felt very removed. And so in order to try to get closer to that practical impact, I started, I got an internship at a startup and they were doing plasma arc gasification technology, which is waste energy. So they basically built these machines that were like the size of 40 foot shipping containers where you would drop garbage in one end and it would gasify it.

And then you like basically turn into clean electricity. And it was it was a really fascinating place to get experience. And I really did feel that like you could just see the impact of what you were working on. And from there, I just had so much fun working in a startup environment where you basically, I mean, you know this as well as anyone. You are a startup. But when you're working with a small group of people who have like a really specific vision they're trying to

bring into the world, it's a really special feeling, right? Like you're you have that camaraderie, everyone's working together and it's just a really special feeling. So I enjoyed that a lot. So I wound up doing a bunch of startup work. And then, yes, working for a venture capital firm where we were investing in startups and helping to to grow them into larger companies. And I've actually continued to do that work independently.

So even once I started publishing novels, I occasionally consult for technology companies, often on editorial or strategy projects. And and for me, it all comes from the same place. Like the reason I'm interested in helping to build something with other people is because I'm really curious about like what that new thing might bring to the world. And whenever I write a novel, it's basically like the same like approach applied to literature

where I am thinking about, oh, wouldn't this be a wonderful thing to bring into the world? So to me, like I love contributing to other people's missions because like that's exciting. And I also and also writing novels is a very solitary art form, right? Like I spend most of my time as a novelist by myself writing. And so because of that, it's a lot of fun to contribute to other people's projects and missions.

And then it's also a lot of fun to be able to step back and sort of bring like have something where where I don't need any other approvals. Right. I'm I'm the one in charge. And I can really just bring out something I have to say, a story I have to tell. I see. Yes, it's that. Yeah, that's really impressive. And but, you know, you were, you know, when you published the first book, you were, I think, the entrepreneur in West End, right?

Yes, that's correct. Yeah. How? Why did you? I know you love reading and maybe you wanted to write, you know, something you want to read. But, you know, what made you to write something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for the very first novel, I mean, it's actually related to my work as at the venture capital firm. So the the at the time this was in 2012, I think I started writing the manuscript in fall 2012. Again, as you know, the human experience of working in a startup is is really unique.

You like again, you have this like idea. You're super you're so excited about that you do things that like ninety nine percent of people never do. Right. Like you don't have a normal job. You. So you're like putting you're taking on all this career risk. You're taking on financial risk. You're you're putting all your eggs in this basket. You're putting everything up on the line for something you care about.

And that's very that's exciting. It's a it's a big drive. But it is also a pressure cooker for human relationships. Right. Like many co-founders relationships explode. Right. Like many early hires don't work out. There's often a lot of friction because people maybe haven't been in a startup before. So they're not used to that and they don't know the norms. They don't know how to think about equity. It's all new. Everyone's learning all this stuff all the time in an environment where like they feel that there is a lot at stake.

And and so to me, working in a bunch of different startups, I felt that and it felt exciting and it felt compelling and it felt like a really rich canvas for human experience. But I was unable to find that experience depicted in in fiction in a way that felt real to me. You know, this was like now there is more of that in pop culture, like you had like HBO made their Silicon Valley. Show But business books don't scratch that itch like they're, you know, many of them are frankly are not worth reading, but like even the best business books that are really done well are are basically memoirs. Right. And and so people are telling about their experience, but it's after the fact. So you're, you know, you're sort of explaining things away, you're skipping stuff, you're, you're just choosing the lessons you want to pass along, and then framing them in your personal experience.

And I wanted the rich, immersive quality of fiction, where you're like in someone else's mind, you're like in their heart, sort of experiencing something unique alongside them. And I tried to find novels that that did justice to the feeling of building something new with a tightly knit group of friends, and really couldn't, I mean, maybe that was my failure, right? There are probably books out there that do it, but I was never able to find one.

And so for that very first book, that's where that came from. I was like, I want to try to offer this, like, like give a window into this world of human experience that that if you haven't done it, you wouldn't know about. And so that's where that first book came from. And I just started doing it. I have no like career aspirations with it. I just started by like opened up Microsoft Word document and like started typing.

And so, you know, and then just kept going because it was fun and I shared it with a few, you know, early draft with a few people and they were encouraging and so then that gave me confidence and so then I kept going. And so that's where the first book came from.

And then when I got a publishing offer, like fast forward to like once I had a manuscript, like I got a publishing offer on the manuscript and that's when I had to decide like, okay, like what do I want to do next? Like, do I want to, you know, invest my time in trying to like bring this book out and then like do more writing or do I want to just treat it as, oh, this was like a fun little project, like I'm going to move on to work on a new startup or something like that. And at that point in my life, I, you know, I tried to basically think about, you know, 40 years from then, what would I regret more, right? Would I regret not taking a chance on the book or would I regret like not doing more work helping to build technology companies?

And I really decided, you know, if I look back when I'm older, I'm going to say, man, what if I had like, you know, tried to share that book with more people? So that's why I wound up pursuing it. I like that story. But so like writing a book usually takes so much time. So yeah, in general, so yeah, how long does it take to write a story and publish a novel? Oh, for me, it's varied a lot, like between books, like every book sort of feels like you think you would get better at it, right? You'd think it would be more predictable over time, like, oh, now I know what it I mean, I like I'm currently writing my 12th novel.

And so I would have expected that I'd be like, oh, okay, now I have it down to a science, right? Like, it'll take this long, etc. And like, every book is different. Like every novel is a totally new beast that you have to, like, figure out how to tame. And, and I also think that, frankly, like, is part of the, what keeps it interesting, like, if it turned into something where you just, it was formulaic, then I think the results would be formulaic. And so for me, I try to embrace that, even though, frankly, it can be frustrating.

So I've had books where I wrote the entire rough draft in like a four month period. And then, and then, you know, went into edits and rewrites and things like that. So like, that takes longer. But I'd say that, like, in general, like, if you look back over my career as a writer, I've basically on average come out with a book about once a year. And that's, that's like, not uncommon among novelists. I mean, like, some people only come out with a book once every 10 years, or just one book in their whole life. And then some people are putting out like, like, even more, you know, I don't know if they write, like, just straight mysteries or something, and they're coming out with many.

But yeah, for me, it's been about a book a year on average. And, and that time is both like thinking about the idea of letting it develop, like working on the rough draft, working on revisions and notes, you know, going through all of that process, and then going from the like, writing and editing process into production and design and packaging and promotion, like the whole publishing process, which is, you know, obviously complimentary and the other half of bringing a book to readers.

I see. Yeah, that's a long process. Yeah. When will your next, you know, 12th book, you know, comes out? When will it be published? So that your next book? I don't know. I'm about maybe like, like 20% of the way through the rough draft. So I don't know. I mean, I hope it would come out next year, like in 2025. But, but we'll see. And when you are writing a novel or book, so where do you keep, where do you write that first? You're using like Word document still? Or like, where do you write it? And where do you keep ideas and overuse it?

Yeah, so I've used a bunch of different like, like writing pieces of writing software over the years. I've used Word, I've used, oh my god, what is it called? Scrivener, which is sort of a popular one among authors, because it's sort of designed for really long documents that you can like break up. And then most, for the past few books, I've used Ulysses, like for the rough draft. And, but to be honest, like I am, oh, and then, then I use Word for edits, not because I like Word, but because the industry standard is Word.

And so when you're working with like many different editors on a really long document, you need to, you need to be able to like track changes and easily work with people who have different systems. And so Word ends up being the most convenient. So I usually write the rough draft in Ulysses and then export it to a Word document for collaborative editing. And so, yeah, I mean, I also use Google Docs a lot, but usually not for books. It just isn't that great for really long documents. It's, it's wonderful for short documents. But once you're talking about like a book length document, the features just don't work as well.

So that's what I use. But I will say that, you know, the, the shoes didn't make Jordan a great basketball player. Right. And I sort of, I think the same about like writing tools. Like, I don't care. I could write a book in, in Apple Notes. Like, it's like, if it's a word processor on a computer, so I don't have to write by hand, like I can make it work. And really the only thing I'm going for is like having a full screen option. So I just don't have like other things distracting me and I can just like be in the text. Like that's, that's really the only feature I care about. And nothing else matters to me. Now, that being said, like, I know many other writers who, for example, who might use a piece of software like Scrivener, where they have elaborate systems.

For, you know, notes and tracking highlights of all the, maybe they're doing all this, like all the research they're doing to support the novel. They'll have like an entire, almost like their own software stack on the back end of like, just like a very intricate knowledge management system for how they work on a book. But the way that I write fiction is that I actually abstract all that away because my philosophy is, I think the best books are, are just, are only about the things that the author is obsessed with. Like, like fiction, nonfiction, I don't even care.

It's just like, if you are really obsessed with something, if something really piques your curiosity, that's what you're going to be the most, you're going to be able to write about that in a way that is so compelling that it brings other people in. And so my philosophy of writing is that I should, I only focus on that. And so if I'm not already obsessed with it, if my brain has forgotten it, it means it wasn't something that I needed to write about anyway. So I basically just read things I'm fascinated about and whatever sticks with me.

In that sense, I assume you have written many stories you haven't published yet. But have you discarded your stories that doesn't excite you? Or will you keep reading? Will that come back later? I'm curious about how that works. Yeah. I'm not sitting on a bunch of manuscripts that aren't published. I mean, I have tons of ideas, many of which I don't ever pursue.

And I have some ideas that I've like sketched out a bit that I then don't pursue because I'm considering, oh, what should I do next, right? Which paths should I take? And so sometimes I play around with some early material in those areas and then choose a path and go with it. But like really, once I've committed to a novel, I write the novel and I publish the novel. And again, I am not saying this prescriptively, like that other people should do that, like their writers take many different approaches.

But for me, I've always felt that, actually, let me start this explanation in a different place. Once you've published novels and like if you build an audience for them and if people enjoy them, very quickly you start getting emails from aspiring writers asking for advice, right? Who are like, oh, I've always had this idea for a book, like, or whatever, right? Or I've been working on this manuscript. It's wonderful, right? It's like it's such a beautiful thing.

Like I've sent people emails asking for advice. So I always try to be responsive and generous in what I can offer them. But you quickly realize something, which is that many aspiring writers are 20% of the way through three projects, right? And then if you checked in with them 10 years from now, they'd still be 20% of the way through three other projects, right? And I believe that doing that, by doing that, you learn nothing.

That if you want to get good at writing novels, you need to finish novel, like you need to actually finish a novel. It would be like, oh, I want to learn to be a cook. I'm going to, like I have water boiling on the stove and I have a cup of dry rice on the counter and I'm just going to stop right there, you know, like that's it. And like, how much are you ever going to become a chef that way? Like, no, right? Like you actually have to cook the meal.

And not only do you have to cook the meal, you have to try it, you have to share it with friends and see how they react to the meal. You have to make it again and like change some ingredients and then try, you know, have some other friends try it. And then like eventually everyone's asking you, when are you going to open a restaurant? You're such a good cook. And then you, right, like that's how you get good at something. And so I think that writing is exactly the same.

So when I commit to a project, when I'm like, there's something here, I don't know what it is yet necessarily, but like, I feel that there is something here, I finish it. Like, because I know if I don't finish it, then I won't have learned, I will never learn something from that process. And believe me, on every project, there are many times during the creation of that project when I wish I didn't have that philosophy, because I would be like, oh, this is going nowhere, right? Like this is a dead end. I should switch and like do something else instead.

Clearly, this is a dead end. And that would be the biggest mistake ever, because in any project worth pursuing that's hard, that's important, where you're really going to learn something, all of them are going to feel like dead ends, right? Like getting through the feeling of it being a dead end is what makes the project special, right? Like you have to figure out how to like approach it from a new direction.

And so if you always quit when that feeling happens, and like switch to something else, like I feel like you just, you're in stasis. You're not actually growing as a, you're not building, you're not like improving your craft. And so for me, once I'm like, okay, there's something here, then I'm like, I'm going to finish this, whatever that means, right? Like, so maybe that means it's much shorter than I had been anticipating or much longer, or maybe it means that I have to switch the point of view character or switch styles or whatever.

Maybe there are like really dramatic things that need to change in order for me to finish it, but I'm going to finish it. I see. Yeah. Like quitters never win or something, something like that. And maybe, yeah, sorry. Yeah. I mean, but, but, I mean, I would like the, I would take that idiom and I would make it more specific because quitters never win makes me think that some people are quitters and other people are winners and you're either

one or the other. And that's not how I feel. I just feel that if you quit on a project, it's not about you. It's not about your identity or like whether you're a winner or a quitter. It's about whether you are going to take honor the project, whether you are going to take that project through to whatever completion means for that project in, in a generous way, right? Like you made this project to benefit other people.

Why else would you make anything? So like, you're going to take that project to completion, even if it's not what you originally dreamed, right. Even if it, if the results are much more humble, even if you write an entire novel and the only thing you do is share it with your mom, right. Or whatever, right. Rather than like going through a big publishing, like that's a win like that. Like to me, you finished a project, you like brought it to someone that, that is success.

So it's not that you're either a quitter or a winner. It's that like when you're working on a creative project, if you want to learn from that process and if you want to like allow others to benefit from how you haven't gone through it, you need to finish that project. Right. Like it doesn't mean that you then have to do another one. Like that could just be the one, but like finish it. Cause then you'll learn and others will benefit. Interesting. Yeah. I think that's the same for founders.

So there are a lot of aspiring founders. So trying to, you know, start my company. So then next year, so I ask a same question. When do you start? Oh, I'm preparing for it. Never. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, frankly, like, I think that like being a founder, being a writer, being an artist, being a musician, it's all the same thing. It's like, you're trying to make something new in service of other people, right? Whether that's music, whether that's a product, whether it's an experience, whether

it's a restaurant, whether it's a poem. I think that there are a lot of parallels. It's just like, if you're trying to like bring new things into the world in service of others, like that's the, yeah, I, that makes perfect sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same. But so, yeah, I'm just curious, like how do you pick ideas to write about? So because you come up with many ideas, so you need to decide which ideas you are like going to write about.

So like, how do you decide? Yeah. I mean, I sort of like come across things in different, like different novels start from different places. So like to give you two different examples, like the, the, like I wrote a novel called Veil. And basically I listened to a podcast interview was the, it was Charles C. Mann, who's a researcher being interviewed on the Tyler Cohen podcast. And he's written a number of books that I found fascinating.

And so I listened to this podcast interview and in it, as an aside, it was like a five minute, like digression in the interview was not the main topic of it. He mentioned research into solar geoengineering, which now is more in the news. But again, this was like five or six years ago. And solar geoengineering, it basically, I think all of your listeners or viewers are like familiar with climate change and how actually the research I was doing back in graduate school on international environmental policy,

like countries have not gotten their act together. Like governments are doing a very poor job stepping up to try to solve this problem. Right. It's like, we are, I think everyone can agree on that regardless of where, you know regardless of what you think the best response is. I think that you know, the UNs and like basically earth's governed nation states are not pursuing anyone's version of an appropriate response to climate change.

And so people are getting more and more desperate. And one proposal that certain climate scientists have is that, you know, I mean, like one of the fundamental issues with climate change is just like greenhouse gases mean that we absorb all this heat from the sun and more of it stays within the atmosphere, right? Like that's what happens. And so that's why the earth is warming.

But if you fly planes really, really high up in the stratosphere and dump dust, literally dust out the back of the plane, you can create a really thin veil like on the outside of the atmosphere that reflects a tiny percentage of incoming sunlight, right? So in doing so less energy enters the earth system in the first place because the earth is slightly more reflective, right? So a little bit more sunlight bounces off the atmosphere instead of entering it and that cools the planet, right? So this actually happens naturally every time a

major volcano explodes. So a big volcano, when it explodes, it shoots a bunch of dust way up high, right? Into the stratosphere. So if you look at all major volcanic explosions throughout or eruptions like throughout history, because you can look at it in ice core data, right? You see that every time there's a large volcanic eruption, the earth's temperature goes down for a few years afterwards because you have this dust up there reflecting more sunlight and then the dust settles

slowly through the atmosphere and then it returns to normal, right? So that's a very regular thing that happens all, you know, whenever a volcano erupts and scientists are now saying, well, if climate change gets bad enough for humans, one thing you could do is simulate that by flying these planes up and creating this like dusty veil on the outside of the atmosphere at which would like reduce global temperature.

Like there's many people do not want this to happen for many good reasons, but everyone agrees it would work. Like it's not a question of like whether it would reduce the earth's temperature. It's a question of like, what would the consequences of reducing the earth's temperature be? And as you can sort of guess, like those consequences are very hard to predict for the same reason that weather and climate are very hard to predict because it's the earth system is really complicated.

And you can imagine that if someone starts doing that, there would be a lot of controversy, right? Like all, you know, every government would like want to have agency in that decision, but then like governments figuring out what to do together is the reason we're here in the first place. So it's just a very messy, thorny question with no easy answer because it's like people are only proposing it because climate change is getting bad, right? So it's just, there's no exit.

And so I heard him describe this and I was like, oh my God, what a, that's, first of all, that's crazy. Like I did not know this was a thing. And second of all, there are so many fascinating layers to unpack there where there is no easy answer, right? And to me, that's always the sign of a potential novel, right? When you're like, oh wow, what a fascinating situation that there's no obvious like outcome from. And so that's why I started writing that novel. I was like, this has to be a novel.

Like literally listening to the podcast, I was like, I'm going to write that novel. And so that was like a very specific instance, but then like the book I'm currently working on, I just like, I had almost an idea for a scene, like the interaction of like a few different characters, like how, like it's more like a personal situation rather than a, an intellectual or like a, like a high concept situation. And that also seemed really compelling.

Like, you know, just like the, how relationships shift in this scene felt like, oh wow, you could play it out in all of these different ways. And that was the seat of the manuscript I'm currently working on. So my books all start in different places. Interesting. Yeah. And in this sense, what do you keep in mind? So when incorporating the future technology and social evolution into novel, because if it's too, you know, fantastical, so people won't believe it, but if it's like too realistic, people won't be interested.

So do you have like a sense of like balance between the two, like, or is there any technique or something you take care of, you know, take me to pick, like make people think it could happen? Well, that's an interesting question. I don't know that I really think about that very much. I mean, some of the most popular book, like, I mean, think of the Lord of the Rings, obviously that's not, no one thinks that's going to happen, but it's very popular. Like people love it.

So I don't think that I don't, and the reverse of that is that many things happen in the real world that seem totally implausible. Right. It's like a lot of stuff happens in real life where you're like, what the hell? Like, I mean, I remember feeling that way when Trump was first elected in the U S I was like, are you, this was, this is like a joke. Like, are you kidding me? This is like a bad episode of black mirror.

And so like, I, I sort of think that plausibility doesn't actually work in the way that most people assume that in fact, like what you, what you root for. So what we're talking about here is basically the suspension of disbelief that when you are immersed in a work of fiction, whether it's a movie or a book or whatever that you, that it feels that it continues to feel compelling that you don't suddenly start in the middle of the story questioning the story, because if you do now you're no longer in the story and it's no fun.

Right. So I think that there are the ways to create that feeling for a reader or for your audience. It's like one, I think that you sort of want to make sure that you set the right expectation at the beginning. Like as an example, if when the first star Wars movie came out, it was marketed as a a biography of a young farmer, which like might technically be true. Like Luke was a farmer on Tatooine right before he became a Jedi knight.

But if you went to that movie expecting it to be about like a farmer in Iowa or something like that, you would be very, it would be really weird. So I think that part of it is like setting the right expectation for readers about what they're getting into. And so part of that is like the cover, how you describe it, like the marketing, all of that. The next step is that when you start, when you start to read a book, you want that expectation to be set within the story.

So if you imagine that like, um, what's a good example of this. Imagine watching the matrix, right. And you don't find out till the last 10 minutes that Neo is in the matrix. Like the whole movie is just about him living his life. And then in the last 10 minutes, they're like, Oh, by the way, there's this huge secret world behind this world. And like, like you, it would just be weird. You would be like, wait, what? Like, like does we've, but we've come all the way here.

And I thought we were that his real life mattered. And now you're just saying it's code, right? Like it would just, it wouldn't work, but because in the beginning, they're already starting, they start that, that cycle of like questioning reality and then finding these new layers to it. It works. So I think that like, you need to, the story basically needs to be self-consistent. You're creating a pocket universe. So it doesn't matter how much that universe reflects the real universe.

What matters is that within that universe, it makes sense. And the characters believe in it, right? That characters, that it feels real to the characters in the story. Like if they act as if it's real, if they fee, if it looks like it's making them feel as if it's real, then the audience basically will believe, believe it is real in the sense of like, it's real for that story.

So when I approach writing a novel, I'm not really thinking like, how can I make this plausible? I'm more thinking, what is the most interesting version of this story? Like, how can I make this story like as, like, how can I make you want to know what, find out, find out what happens next, like in the, in the most rich possible way, right? Not just plot, like also the intellectual content, the characters, like how can I make it just feel extremely compelling? And if I break the things I just talked about with regard to suspension of disbelief, that will

break the story, right? So I can't ignore it. But, but the thing I'm actually aiming for is that it's just a very compelling emotional journey rather than that, you know, I'm throttling the use of a new technology in a specific way. I see. And when it comes to the, you know, like, ideation, you know, you know, potential, like how to enrich your story and so on.

And how, what helps you, like, think of better ideas? I mean, do you, you know, nowadays people are obsessed, you know, AI is trendy, you know, generative AI is trendy. Do you use creativity to brainstorm? or all the inspiration came from your past reading or from other books. Yeah, I'm curious about your source of inspiration and how you, do you use AI? Yeah, I've played with like all the AI tools. I have not yet found them to be very helpful in my workflow.

I am interested, I was actually just talking to a friend about this the other day, and I actually think that brainstorming is probably one of the places where they might be more helpful. I feel like a common misconception, which I have shared when I first started playing with them, is that they will help you produce writing that you'd want to read. And I feel like that's sort of the assumption behind a lot of the headlines around AI, of AI replacing artists, for example.

It's like the, it's like people think, oh, the use of this tool is the, to create the end work product, right? And I have found that to be completely useless for when it comes to writing. I don't, like for me, like I can never get them to generate anything I would find interesting for, or that I would want to publish, like at all. So I've found them to be not at all useful for that. But I do think that actually brainstorming is a much better application, at least when it comes to fiction, because like the way that I actually, that I've gotten ideas

for all of my novels so far is, I mean, basically what you said, I mean, it's basically like me reading things, paying attention to life, and having conversations with friends, right? It's like I have friends who are like working on their own interesting projects. Like I love hearing about those projects. And then sometimes if that strikes my, you know, piques my curiosity, I'll try to learn more. I'll then read about that subject.

Then I'll like call, I'll interview people about that subject because I want to learn more about it. I go, I go on, you know, go down Wikipedia rabbit holes, and I watch every YouTube video. I just like, like learning about the thing. And like, so I can totally, like to me, like the generative AI tools are just like another version of that. It's like, cool. Oh, okay. Like, oh, you want to, okay. Now help summarize all the top latest papers on solar geoengineering. Like what are the takeaways from those? Or, okay.

I have this idea for a plot, dramatizing geoengineering. Give me 50 ideas for like other ways I could approach that plot twist or something like that. Like, I think that those, I haven't used generative tools for that yet, but I can imagine how that would actually be very helpful. And it's helpful in the same way that people like that I already get from people. So for example, when I'm trying to come up with ideas, I'm often talking to people about them, my wife, my friends or

whatever, right? Like, oh, what if this, what if that, or isn't this fascinating? Right. And just, you know, short conversation. And then once I'm working on a novel, once I have the manuscript and I get notes, then I'm revising it. I'm trying to, you know, like people are giving me notes like, well, this isn't quite working for me. Or like, what if you did this instead? Like those kinds of things.

And then I'm always needing to figure out what do I do here? And so I think that in the same way that like working with other writers in a writer's room can be really helpful. I basically think that like, that would be a useful application of a lot of these generative AI tools, because you could just like, oh, okay, give me a hundred ideas. I'm not going to use any of them, but that makes me think of idea 101, which then I run with and write a scene about.

So I think that feels like a compelling use case that I haven't used yet, but basically like as a research tool and as a brainstorming companion, like that makes sense to me. Sorry, this is a random question, by the way, but do you book club with other writers or authors? You mean like book club? You mean, do I read books with other writers and then discuss them? No. I'm actually a very, like, I love book clubs and I'll sometimes, for example, like when people have book clubs, if they have, you know, sometimes they'll reach out with questions.

And I actually did one thing with the last novel when it came out. I said, if your book club is reading Foundry, if you, you know, like I'm happy to, I can call in on Zoom for 20 minutes to like answer any questions at the end of your meeting about the book. Right. And that was actually really fun. Those are in many ways, those discussions are much more fun than like the press interviews you do because everyone's read the book and they like they're, they,

so you can already like advance the conversation to like what they're interested in. But for me, I'm actually a very, I'm not a member of any book clubs and there's a really specific reason why. When I was in high school, you know, we had English class where they would assign you books and you'd read them and write essays about them or whatever. And I loved reading. As I said, like, I've always loved reading, but like, I don't want to read a book I don't want to read.

And like very often the books that they would assign, I wasn't interested in. I would like start to read them and I would get bored or just, I was like, this is, this is, this is I would just not read them and I would just make up an essay and I would just read whatever I wanted. And I basically feel the same way today. So I read very widely. Like I read a lot and I read many different kinds, like all genres, like I'll read it. I'll read anything.

And I'm like, I'll try almost anything. Like if you give me a book recommendation right now, like I'll look it up, I'll give it a try, but I'll often quit after the first sentence or the first paragraph or the first page or, or the first 10 pages or even the first a hundred pages. Like I am completely ruthless in quitting something that isn't engaging me. Right. So so that doesn't work well for book clubs because everyone has to decide on what book to read.

And then when you show up to discuss the book, everyone's expected to have read it. And so I would just, I'm a very bad book club member because people, I would be up for any suggestion, but then if I quit after the first page, what are we going to discuss? Right. The fact that I didn't like it, there's nothing there. So yeah. So I'm actually not in any book clubs, although I love the idea of them. Interesting. By the way, do you have like a go-to book? Do you have any favorite books, you know, let's say whenever you are stuck

with, you know, something and you go to this book and read, you know, let's say, or read a book, read that book every year, every two years or something. No, no, I really don't. I mean, I have books that like I love that like really made an impression on me. So that's, but I don't like return to books in that way very often. I think I recently reread Dune because I wanted to watch the new movie and I had last read it when I was like 12. Right.

But like that was a very specific instance. So I'm, I'm always really just. So, okay. My philosophy of books is that one of the beauties of books as a medium, which I actually think is very different from film, from TV, from or, or from like even new forums, like Instagram posts or whatever, like all these new media, like different media formats. Like, I think one of the really beautiful things about books is that they last a really long time.

They're like one of the most permanent of formats and that has consequences. So one of the consequences is because they, because so much of the format is optimized for timelessness, it means that it's very difficult to be timely. So, so you're like, no matter who you are, when your book comes out, it's very hard to like, win the news cycle with your book, right? Like who cares that a book came, like there are millions of books, like who cares that a new book came out? It's like, that's, so it's very hard to like

create a splash with a new book in the way that you might, if you nail just the right joke on Twitter based on today's news, right? Like that could, millions of people might see it tomorrow. But like with a book, like that just doesn't, it takes, it takes a long time to write, they take so long to publish and then they're around for so long. It just doesn't work the same way. But the flip side is also true.

That really snarky tweet, like next week, everyone's forgotten about it, right? Like, and it's no longer funny. Like no, one's going to be like looking back for it later. But with a book, you can find a book that's 200 years old that, and read it and it might speak to you right now, right? And like, you might tell your friends about it. And so I think that's one of the special things about books. And so for me, whenever, when I describe how I'll start a lot of books and quit a lot of books,

like I don't, I don't, when I am like, I'm not, I'm going to stop reading here. It's not because I think there's something wrong with the book. It's just that I'm not the right person for this Right now. And so I have found that sometimes I will return to that book five years from now, and I'm like, this is the best thing ever. How did I not like it? Right. But like, that's because I changed. Right.

And so I think that that's like when I am thinking about what do I read next? I just ask myself, what am I most, what do I most want to read next? Right. Like what, what is, what makes me want to read it next? And so I don't have any habits of like returning to things on purpose because I have no, I have no habits around it except what do I want to read right now? So I don't know if that makes sense, but that's, that's how I approach it. Yeah, that's really insightful. And thank you.

And yeah, let me move on to, you know, another topic like storytelling, because you are advising startups and entrepreneurs and designers, you know, about storytelling, right? And what were you in the process, you know, of your teaching, you know, storytelling, what, how does your process start with? I mean, what's the most important advice or starting point? I mean, yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, you, any founder of anything, like most of your job is storytelling, right? I mean, you, if you, if you're trying to recruit a potential employee, if you're trying to raise money from an investor, if you're trying to sell to your first customer, if you're trying to explain yourself to press or to the world directly through your blog or your social media or whatever, like you're, you're trying to tell your own story, right? I mean, that's just what you're doing all the time.

And like, basically the more senior you are in an organization all the way up to like founder, the more that is your job, right? And like, when you're a founder, you almost don't have any other jobs. Like that's effectively your job, right? Like you're constantly, it's like, you're trying to tell a story to your team about what it means to be on this team and like what it means to build the thing you guys are seeking to build, right? Like all of those are stories when Jeff

Bezos would write his famous annual letters to investors, right? Like same with Warren Buffett, like all of those are, it's a format of them telling their story. But like what I have found for myself and what a lot of other people find is that often your own story is the hardest to tell, right? Because you have no perspective on yourself. It's impossible to have perspective on yourself.

And so it's a very odd dynamic because you can look at other people and be like, oh man, this is how you should do it. And you're probably right. But for them to understand that is much more difficult. And so when I work with founders, I'm trying to figure out what is your story and how can I help you tell it in a way that connects with the right people, not with everyone because no one serves everyone, with the people you seek to serve, with like the people you want to make this for. Just like when I write a novel, I'm not writing it for everyone.

I'm writing it for my own taste and the people who share my preferences because only by doing it in that weird way will they feel like, yes, I feel seen. This is me. This is, I want to be on this journey with you. And basically, if you're a founder, you're trying to do the same thing, right? You're like, I want people to see themselves in this and want to be on this journey with me. Like whether they're an employee or a customer or a user or like whatever, it doesn't like literally everyone

you are trying to invite onto this journey. And so when I work with companies, it depends, I mean, the exact logistics depend on the shape the story needs to take. So say you're doing your launch video, right? Like that's a different format than a tweet thread, which is a different format than like an essay or a blog post or a manifesto, right? But like, you know, very often I will come in and spend a significant amount of time interviewing everyone who

is exercising a guiding force on the mission. So obviously the founders, but also like senior team members, right? Like the key engineer whose approach to the craft of building is going to influence the product experience. Core users who they already are loving the thing, investors, board members, if I like, you know, usually about a dozen people, like whoever is like care so much that their opinions shape the direction of the company. And so I interview them.

And then just to give an example, if I'm writing like a manifesto style essay, like a canonical version of the company story that everybody else can reference and that you can like use to build a content strategy and also just publish to invite people on board, whatever, like, then I would go away, do some research, spend a bunch of time like writing it. And then I would like share it with the, with the founder and solicit feedback from the team and revise it just like I would revise

any other story. And my goal is not to like have me tell a cool story. It's to help them articulate the best version of their own story in a way that will, where the value will compound over time. Because like, if you have a document like that, like an essay length version of like, this is our core thing, this is what we're about. Like that doesn't, that's not like publishing an SEO optimized blog post that is irrelevant by next week. Right.

Like that's something that like shapes how you raise money, how you pitch people, like it, it like literally impacts everyone's work in the organization for years. And so that's really worth investing that amount of time and care in because now you have this asset that can really sort of like, yeah, just like articulate that core vision. And I think that frankly, I mean like obviously part of it is I spent my entire professional life thinking about story and like what makes them work and how to make better ones.

But, but I think that at least half the battle is that I'm an outsider. And so I can, you come in and you just have, you have that sense of perspective that they don't. And I feel that too. The hardest thing for me like it's not writing the novel, it's telling the story of the novel to other people afterward. Right. Because I have no perspective. I like that, like I'm in the same position. I'm like, I live this.

How am I supposed to describe it to you? So that, yeah, that's what my, my the projects I do for companies, that's what they look like. Thank you. Yeah. That totally resonates with, yeah, I think many, many founders. And I think, yeah, people, I think, yeah. So, and it's already, the time is running, you know, and so before ending, you know, oh, we already shared, you know, advice to aspiring writers, right, already, but do you, you know, finishing project and so on, but do you have any,

other advice to aspiring writers or founders? Sleep well, exercise regularly, spend less than you earn. I, I think that all the advice is already out there. I think that probably the biggest one is like, don't listen to so many people. Don't listen to so much advice or like advice, like getting the right advice is not what it's going to make this work for you. Right.

Like you have to just try and see what works and then double down on that. And like, almost by definition, like most advice, like all advice, most advice is well-intentioned, but it only applies to the situation where the person learned and that might not be your situation. So I just don't like, you can find great advice that will advise you to go in every possible direction. So advice is actually dramatically over-indexed. Like you're better off like following your, like wherever seems right to you.

And I think that the, the only, or the only advice that I find to be like worth paying attention to is like the most basic straightforward stuff where like, okay. I mean, like if you, if, if you quit your job to become a musician and you're not already making money from doing gigs and you can't pay your rent, you're going to be in a very stressful, you're putting yourself into a very stressful position that is unlikely to benefit your music. So like, why would you do that? Right.

So like, so I feel like really basic stuff like that. Like, I know I can't operate well if I don't sleep well, but a lot of people stay up really late and it sounds just stupid, but I feel like that level of advice, that's the advice worth paying attention to. The tactical advice, forget it. I see. Yeah. Topics. Yes. And, yeah, this is actually, this will be the last question. But, you know, since Grasp is a platform where people, you know, share what they're reading,

learning with others as their digital legacy. And, yeah, I'd like to ask you, you know, what kind of legacy or impact do you want to leave behind? And, you know, you already, you know, by the way, sorry, you know, in addition to that, because you share about, you know, storytelling, and the Grasp started with my, actually my, you know, nearest experience. So when I was 20, I had a subdural hematoma, and so much blood in my brain, I had a surgery, and I was almost dead.

And the left side of my body was paralyzed at the time. And thankfully, I'm okay now. I had a surgery, I'm okay now. But at the time, when I confronted with the reality, you know, that I might disappear from the world, I really, I was scared. At the same time, I really wanted to leave something for other people so that I could feel a sense of contribution to human society. So then I wonder, how can I leave something while I'm alive? And, and especially, I'm learning a lot, but why don't

I leave something or share something while I'm learning so that others could benefit from my learning? So that's how we started Grasp. And so that's why we are, you know, creating a platform where people can live their learnings and as a digital legacy, and so on. But yeah, you know, but you know, I'd love to, you know, we'd love to know your kind of legacy or impact you, you know, that you want to leave, you know, for future generations.

That's a really powerful story. Thank you for sharing. I think that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about legacy. But the way that I think about it, we've already sort of touched on before, which is that when I write a novel, first, I'm the first reader. So I'm trying to make it for myself, because then I can use my taste as a guide. But when I publish a novel, I'm doing that for other people, right? Like, if I just wrote it for myself, I can just keep it on my computer and like,

doesn't, you know, like, I would have succeeded. But when I publish, I'm doing that for other people. And I'm doing it for, again, not for everyone, just for people that I know, again, not for everyone, just for the people who would be so excited to read this in the way that I feel so excited to read the books I love, right? Like when I find a book that really speaks to me, I am so immersed in it. It offers me a new window onto human experience.

It offers me perspective on life that I would never have had before. It gives me a new lens on the world to make sense of it and understand it in a new way. And it's fun. It's straight up just like, like entertaining or funny or wise, right? Like they're just, they're all like when a book really, when I really connect with a book, it's a very beautiful experience. And so for me, when I publish a book, I am doing that.

The only point of me publishing a book at all ever is to try to offer that experience as a gift to others, to folks who would connect with the story in the way that I connect with the stories I love. And so the way that connects to legacy is not, is indirect. For me, it doesn't matter if the people, if the right people for this book at the right moment in their lives, when the book is perfect for them, like it doesn't matter whether they're alive or not today, just as it doesn't matter if they discover it tomorrow or 10 years from now, right? Like the

point is that this is there for them when they need it, when, when they encounter it, when the stars align for them. And so in a sense, I guess you could call it impact, but like, to me that might be a 16 year old living in Tokyo right now, but it also might be like my great, great, great, granddaughter long after I'm dead, right? Like, and so time is almost immaterial, right? Like the, the, the magic happens when someone connects with the story,

not when they happen to be alive. And so like, from my perspective, I mean, like I sort of think once I die, none of that matters to me. I mean, I'm dead. So, but like having contributed something like, like when you, we have been given this amazing gift, which is to not be dead for the moment, right? Like we're alive right now, all three of us, that's a really, that's an incredible opportunity.

And to be able to use some of that to help enrich others' lives as they're experiencing that opportunity is a really beautiful thing. So that's, that's what I'm seeking to do. That's, that's really beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you so much for joining today and sharing all the insight and experience. And thank you. You bet. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for all your good questions.

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Why Curiosity Drives Great Writing: A Bestselling Author's Journey by Eliot Peper

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