How Tolkien Turned Boredom into a Bestseller

Be alert for creativity to strike in the midst of the mundane. Even an unexpected blank page can hold the beginning of your next masterpiece.

You don’t have to be working in a cabin in the woods to have creative insights. You don’t have to be a hermit, or to wake up before sunrise and meditate.

You don’t even have to be doing something creative.

In fact, creative insights sometimes strike in the midst.

In the midst of cleaning your kitchen. In the midst of driving to work. In the midst of formatting TPS reports.

JRR Tolkien tells a cool story about how he started writing The Hobbit. Tolkien wrote some of the most beloved fantasy novels of the twentieth century. But, like me, in his day job he was a university professor.

In a BBC interview in 1968, he recalls how the first line of his book The Hobbit came to him.

Should Creators Focus on Quality or Quantity?

In creative pursuits, quality will come as a result of quantity. Get intelligent reps in your field and share your work before you think you’re ready.

Writer Ryan Holiday said in an interview that he doesn’t put much stock in the "quality over quantity" excuse when creating.

You know the one. You say you want to line everything up first. To get everything ready so that it’s just right before releasing it to the world.

You say you want to painstakingly get everything right before you release your masterpiece.

Don't Sit on a Great Idea

When you have a creative idea that is a ten out of ten, get it out into the world as fast as humanly possible—because you can bet that someone else in the world just had the same idea as you.

As creatives, we get dozens of ideas. Most are fleeting, average, just okay. We work our creative process knowing that most of our ideas aren’t worth pursuing.

But we pursue these okay ideas anyway because we know that they are the path to the really special ideas.

The ten out of tens.

The ideas that give you a special feeling, like the heavens have either opened up before you or come crashing upon you—or both.

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