David Perell

I’m looking for somebody to help recruit A+ guests onto my podcast, How I Write.

The show is fast becoming the place where every great writer (from musicians, to filmmakers, to poets, to novelists) do their most in-depth interview about their writing process.

We’re off to a great start. People like Sam Altman and Tim Ferriss have already come on, and so have award-winning novelists like Amor Towles and Richard Powers. The show is working. Now it’s time to double-down. You’ll help get people like J.K. Rowling, Elizabeth Gilbert, JJ Abrams, Bruce Springsteen, Kendrick Lamar, and Tara Westover onto the show.

I don’t care about credentials for this role. I care about passion, tenacity, and demonstrated success with reaching out to high-level people on the internet.

I’ll tell you this up-front: We’re not going to do a spray-and-pray approach to guest outreach. That’s not how I roll. Instead, we’re going to write emails that match the quality of the show. The emails are going to be personalized and well-written and totally unlike the kinds of emails people at the top of their game usually receive.

This is a part-time gig. There are no set hours, we’re focussed on results. You'll have the freedom to work whenever and wherever you’d like. You’ll report directly to me and have lots of room to be creative.

If you’re interested, I’ve shared a link to a Typeform in the reply tweet. It has three questions:

1. Why are you the right person for this role?
2. What would your strategy be for attracting top-tier guests?
3. How have you attracted top-tier people in the past?

Want to tell your life story?

Tucker Max is the guy to learn from. He's sold millions of memoirs. The ones you probably know about are about partying, women, and drinking. Now, as a changed man, he teaches people how to write their memoir.

17 lessons from our crazy honest chat:

1. A story is a record of change.

2. Tucker's #1 rule of memoir writing: Whenever you find yourself wondering about what you should say next, the answer is: "Tell the truth."

3. The purpose of a memoir isn’t to give a step-by-step account of exactly what happened. Rather, the purpose is to share your memory of what happened and write about what it felt like to experience those things.

4. There are two kinds of memoirs: (1) Tell your story and (2) Leave a legacy. If you’re going to write a memoir, get clear on which style you’re pursuing.

5. The goal of writing a ‘Tell your story’ memoir is to tell the truth about your life.

6. The goal of writing a ‘Leave a legacy’ memoir is to make people think a certain way

7. Struggling with dialogue? Try picturing it as a movie. Trying to be too true to the exact details of the conversation will hurt you. The point is to be truthful, not factual.

8. For every major event, answer three questions: (1) What happened? (2) How did it make you feel? (3) What happened next?

9. The best memoir writing is invisible, meaning the reader doesn’t notice it. They only see the story you’re telling.

10. The most interesting thing you can do is be honest. Or, as Kevin Kelly says: “Want to be interesting? Tell your story with uncommon honesty.”

11. The first time a reader buys your book, they buy it with their money. The second time they buy it, they buy it with their time. In fact, that’s the purpose of the introduction: to keep selling your reader after they’ve bought your book.

12. The best memoir writing is invisible, meaning the reader doesn’t notice it. They only see the story you’re telling.

13. You don’t need fancy language and impressive sentences to write a memoir.  You simply need to focus on telling the truth.

14. Want to write funny sentences? Point out an absurdity that most people see but aren't willing to explicitly talk about.

15. Want to know who's in power? The people you're not allowed to make jokes about.

16. People won't read your memoir to learn about you. They'll read it to learn about themselves.

17. Bad dialogue usually happens because the writer is distorting the truth, either by lying to themselves or trying to make somebody sound a certain way.

That's just a taste of what I talked about with @TuckerMax.

I've shared the full interview below. If you want to listen to the podcast, I've linked to Apple and Spotify in the reply tweets. And if you want to watch the full thing, I've also linked to the YouTube video.

Here are the time stamps:

1:26 Why Tucker Writes Memoirs 3:37 Memoir Writing as Therapy 8:49 Writing Celebrity Memoirs 11:30 The Two Kinds of Memoirs 14:22 Write a Slice of Your Life Story 16:51 Focus, focus, focus 20:13 The janitor’s crazy life story 22:29 What makes writing funny? 26:53 Why some memoirs are bad 30:03 Write from your scars, not your wounds 33:29 Should you keep a journal? 37:54 Anne Frank’s diary 41:38 Tucker’s memoir-writing algorithm 50:55 What to do when you’re in tears 56:01 Writing dialogue 1:00:06 Truth vs. fact vs. fiction 1:01:59 Should you try to be original? 1:04:42 How to title your memoir 1:07:22 Audiobooks for memoirs 1:09:26 David Goggins’ audiobook 1:11:54 Tucker’s #1 rule of memoir writing 1:13:40 How to build a writing habit 1:24:11 Writing your 1st draft 1:25:12 How to write about emotions 1:29:52 Writing an introduction 1:31:44 How to begin a memoir