Tolkien’s Essay on Why Fantasy Is Important

A friend recommended I read Tolkien’s essay On Fairy Stories. I really enjoyed it. And I listed my favorite quotes below (to save you a couple hours of reading):

“The first draft is for you. The second is for the reader. The third is for the hater.”

— Neil Strauss

(Neil Strauss is a New York Times Bestseller and the author of Everyone Loves You When You're Dead, and he’s speaking with Tim Ferriss on CreativeLive.com right now!)

HIS TIPS: 

1. Write based on the premise that NOBODY CARES; then make them care.
2. The first draft is for you. The second is for the reader. The third is for the hater.
3. If you can take a scene out and it doesn’t change the whole story, it has to go—no matter how good it is.
4. Tim (and Neil too) puts Monday as the minutia day—catching up on email and junk things. But he’ll only mess with that stuff on that one day per week.
5. Neil even automates his food delivery so he doesn’t have to choose what to eat each day. It helps remove decisions so he can focus on what’s important.
6. Neil reads his book out loud to his friends, but he doesn’t even ask for feedback. He can tell when he’s losing them from their facial expressions.
7. If you can sell 10K copies, a publisher will pick you up. No matter what. Also, if you can get on the A-list in Asia, you’ve made it too.
8. Tim outlines. Neil doesn’t.
9. Use “TK” in your document when you want to come back to something (it’s a simple “term” to search, and that combination isn’t found in the English language).
10. Tim: If the topic isn’t fun to research, it won’t be fun to read. So you better love it.

“If we follow our own will, we may get to the best places we can imagine. But there are better places than we can imagine.”

— Bentley Snow

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

  — George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.”

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pioneer

of international postal flight and

author of The Little Prince

“It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple.”

 — Steve Jobs

(In Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, which I’m reading now.)

“If you’re wasting time having fun, you’re not wasting time.”

— Tim Freaking Ferriss

“And I could write a book, the one they’ll say that shook the world.”

— Coldplay, “Swallowed in the Sea”

“Truth is, I’d rather be knighted than receive my PhD.”

— J

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

— C. S. Lewis

“I am of the opinion that if any growing up was done, it was done too quickly.”

— J

“If you’re writing to a human being, then make it personal, interesting, and clear. With one exception—if you’re writing to a human being who doesn’t like to be acknowledged as a human being, then just make it clear.”

— J

(This is from my lecture on ethos, pathos, and logos—personal, interesting, and clear.)

“It was very visceral. I felt like I was really falling. You did a good job with that.”

— Brandon Sanderson

(Speaking of the intro to ECKSDOT that I shared with him.)

“The reader is close enough to hear a whisper.”

— J