The Wisdom of the Void

For the last few years I’ve spent most of my time helping other writers, but lately I’ve been also working on a writing project of my own.

I’ve always been enthralled with the void. Darkness. What’s not seen. Once you start to pay attention to it, it’s everywhere. Silence. The wind. It starts within.

Everyone experiences the void at one point or another. Some visit it frequently. The wisest among us learn to see it as an old friend; as potential—a portal into the unknown. Culturally, we are taught to fill any emptiness in our lives. Fill it with a pill, a person, an accomplishment. We escape any sense of lack with meditation, microdosing, therapy, or shopping. Many of us are on a mindless race to Nowhere which, ironically, is precisely where the healing lies: in the void. A place of endless possibility, hiding in plain sight. 

The void is in the negative space of a photograph, the absence of sound between two notes of music; a pause in conversation, darkness when you close your eyes. It’s in the dark energy of the cosmos, the black holes that form as giant stars collapse. It’s transformative power and simple application begins to make sense when you consider how the void, the invisible is woven into every domain of life.

I’ve spent the last year researching and studying different manifestations of the void for a book I am writing. I started to look deeper into how the void appears in our bodies and minds, in the cosmos and beyond. I talked to cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, oceanographers, astronauts, linguistic experts and brain research fellows at MIT. I wanted to understand how the void shows up in matter, the cosmos, biology, science, architecture, neuroscience, languages, religion, and philosophy. As I learned about all of the different dimensions and cultural expressions of the unseen, something remarkable happened: I stopped chasing and yearning.

It amazed me to learn that even our biology involves an element of the unseen. Take human vision for example. There’s evidence that our visual perception relies on gists, our eyes make predictions, filling in the holes as it were about what we actually see with our own two eyes. The same is true of our ears and the way we hear. Some neuroscientists I interviewed believe that what we interpret as consciousness is more likely the prediction, rather than the real-time feed. I learn about dark holes and cosmic vacuums, another part of our universe that seems filled with emptiness and yet the opposite is true.

If this appeals to you, I am looking for beta readers for early draft chapters of the book and will share more as this unfolds.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Why Your Book Needs an H Mart Factor

Another crucial element of a killer book proposal (that publishers will want to buy) is what I call the H Mart Factor.

If you’re not familiar, CRYING IN H MART is a stunning memoir that spent 60 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and made the author, Michelle Zauner, a literary star. Her runaway success was unexpected.

What launched it? The H Mart Factor.

If you look at nonfiction books on the bestsellers list, most authors have a) celebrity or b) an audience of true believers they spent years developing. Zauner had neither. She is the lead singer of an indie band, Japanese Breakfast, but they are hardly a household name—even now. She did pen a popular piece in The New Yorker, which didn’t hurt.

But what made that piece popular—and later, her book—is that she she wrote about a common subject (a loved one getting cancer) in a completely unusual way. Can you guess the most common subject of memoir book proposals (as well as essays pitched to Dan Jones, editor of the NYT’s Modern Love)?

A loved one getting sick or dying.

If you want to write about that, or any nonfiction topic that has already been covered ad nauseam, you need an H Mart Factor:

1—It’s never been written about in this specific way before

2—Only you could write it this way

3—Bonus if it’s also counterintuitive, surprising, controversial or speaks to a growing trend

Zauner had all three. She did not write about her mother getting chemo, losing weight, or taking brutal trips to the doctor. (Almost everyone knows about these experiences, even if second hand.)

Instead, she wrote about Korean cooking, culture, and relationships. (Point #1: No other cancer or losing-my-mom memoir has been packaged in this way.) She told us about re-embracing her Korean heritage once her mother was sick and how she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul. She took us on a trip inside the walls of her Korean home and back to Korea as she visited. She wrote about food and culture primarily, over grief. (Point #2: No one else could have written this exact book; instead of writing about common experiences people have when a loved one is sick, she included the experiences that only she had.)

It didn’t hurt that as a culture, we were becoming obsessed with all things Korean. (Point #3: Speaks to a growing trend.)

Many authors don’t think enough in advance about how to package their books; They just write. But a book is a product. For it to be compelling, you have to design it with the mindset of a marketer or product designer.

There are a million ways to compose a story. Zauner could have written about her music or her band or any number of others dimensions in her life as a way to tell us about her grief. She tapped into her H Mart Factor—and used it as a way to package her story in a way that was wholly unique to her, fascinating to learn about; one that touched a chord in the cultural zeitgeist.

Why You Need True Believers, Not a Platform

If you’re interested in getting a book deal, you may have already heard about the importance of “platform.” It’s true: No one will buy your book if they don’t know about it.

But I’d like to argue that you don’t need a platform, you need true believers. A platform or an audience might be intrigued by—or even want—your book.

True believers need your book.

(Check out The Culting of Brands, where I got this term.)

Why will thousands of people select your book—out of the 33 million others available on Amazon—put it in their cart and shell out $29? They won’t unless they need it. They have to believe.

There are too many books to choose from and the way people consume information (What books are hot right now?) is excruciatingly fragmented and decentralized. In years past, if your book was on the Today Show or The New York Times you could reasonably expect it to fly off the shelves. Not today. You can get all the right media hits, have an excellent book, and it still may not sell.

Publishers want to see that you already have an audience, preferably a large one, not only eagerly listening to what you have to say, but demonstrating that they want more from you:

—Email subscribers

—Social media followers

—Lecture audiences (companies, orgs that pay you to speak on this topic)

—Course attendees or memberships (people who pay for your material)

These are the captive potential readers to whom you will sell your book; They believe! They feel a sense of belonging because of you. Find out what they like, where they live online, and how reach more of them. Do market research: Does the formula need more sugar? Pay attention to what they like most from you and develop your book from this place.

If they don’t want more from you, you’ll never sell them a book. I follow plenty of people who have written books I won’t buy. Because I’m not a true believer. At least, not yet.

How to Find a UDF (Unique Differentiating Factor) in Your Writing — and Why You Need One

In 2018, my best friend died of cancer. I wanted to write an essay about it. Guess what? Over half a million people die of cancer every year. More specifically, my friend was young (41) and died of breast cancer. Sadly, this is still not unique. 1 in 39 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime; Chances are most of you know someone who died from cancer at a young age. While losing my closest friend was a brutal, unique story to me, to the world at large, it was a commonplace experience.

I had to look much harder to find what I could say about cancer that hadn’t already been said in the eons of people dying from cancer.

If you want anyone to read what you write, you have to tell a story that doesn’t exist. Even better? Make it a story that won’t show up in the future either, because you’re the only one who could write it.

To do that, you need a UDF.

OK, what was unique and differentiating about my friend and our relationship as it relates to cancer? During her illness, we became obsessed with the Golden State Warriors professional basketball team. Anything else? We previously hated basketball. Anything else? We lived on opposite coasts and used our Warriors fever to distract ourselves from grief, texting each other during games across 3,000 miles.

Now I have a story that no one else could write. Yes, it’s about cancer and dying and loss and all the brutal things. But if I’d written “two old friends say goodbye and are sad because one died of cancer,” no one would read it because that story is as old as time.

But now my story is: AN UNLIKELY SPORTS OBSESSION WOULD UNITE JACKIE ASHTON AND HER BEST FRIEND ACROSS 3,000 MILES AND ONE DEVASTATING DIAGNOSIS.

Instead of writing about common cancer experiences that millions go through (chemo, hair loss, grief, how to say goodbye), I wrote specifics that only the two of us shared: our unlikely love for Dub Nation. How we loved Steph Curry for different reasons but were united in the way we adored Draymond Green. How we obsessed over which high tops to buy our sons and spent more money on tickets to an OKC game in Oakland than we did on our first semester of college.

That is a UDF. That story, that book, that movie — about two old friends staring into the backlight of their smartphones, texting Steph Curry GIFs from California to Georgia at 1 am as a way to focus on joy and life rather than the very real possibility of death — didn’t exist. I wrote it, had multiple outlets interested, and sold it in one day for $6k. No one else could have written that essay and that is what made it easy to sell.

I’ve helped countless clients do the same thing with their essays, book concepts, or even copy for their website.

You gotta start with the UDF.

Most writers or aspiring authors come to me with their UDF buried deep underneath JARGON NO ONE READS BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO GENERIC. Don’t do that! It’s a humongous waste of time, money, and very likely to fail. Copywriters know this and labor over every word. But most people who want to write essays, books, articles — preferably ones that get millions of eyeballs — gloss right over this crucial step and waste time writing things someone else could write, possibly even better.

Exercise:

Consider what you want to write (a book, an article, copy for your website, anything). Describe it in one sentence (as I did above in BOLD). Keep refining that sentence until you are certain it describes something only you could write. Not sure? Read it again and ask yourself: Could anyone else write this? If you’re a female CEO telling women how to become a successful executive and manifest the career of their dreams, you better not have one thing in there that’s been said before. Could someone else say it? You’re not done. Keep drilling down: what’s the one thing you could say about this topic that no one else can? That is your UDF. That is why an editor, an agent, a potential customer reading your website copy will want you, your story, your product. Because your writing is a product. When you treat it like one, the barriers (rejection, radio silence) start to dissolve.

Here’s the essay I ended up writing and selling to Real Simple magazine.

Strength in Numbers

AN UNLIKELY SPORTS OBSESSION WOULD UNITE JACKIE ASHTON AND HER BEST FRIEND ACROSS 2,500 MILES AND ONE DEVASTATING DIAGNOSIS.

IT’S BASKETBALL SEASON. Here in the Bay Area, home of the Golden State Warriors — winner of two of the last three NBA Finals — it is impossible to escape Warriors fever. Believe me, I’ve tried. Most Warriors fans find the team to be a source of pure happiness. But my feelings are conflicted: one part joy, another part anguish.

When I see a blue-and-yellow Golden State Warriors flag waving in the wind outside a restaurant, I become dizzy with sadness. If I turn on the TV, I know I’ll see the ad where Klay Thompson swishes three-pointers while touting the benefits of a post-workout glass of chocolate milk. A few seconds later, I’ll have to dart into the pantry to weep.

But I wasn’t always flinging myself into closets to sob during Warriors games.

Some people fall in love with their passion slowly. Others, like me, watch the Warriors’ 2015 NBA Finals victory with their 7-year-old and become hooked on their home team, all at once and forever. As I sat there with my son that night, I was mesmerized. Who was this dream team?

At the start of the 2016 season, I went all in. I bought flags for my car, temporary tattoos to wear during games. Over the course of the season, my obsession deepened: I watched replays on Instagram, stayed up past midnight listening to postgame interviews. The Warriors became my religion; Dub Nation, my church. Me, the woman who, as a child, recoiled at the sound of games on television.

“When did you become such a huge sports fan?” my closest friend, Emily, asked me from Atlanta over text. She had a point. She was the athlete, not me. At 8 years old, she had been the top-ranked tennis player in Georgia, where we met in kindergarten. She had earned a full athletic scholarship to the University of Virginia, where we were room- mates all four years. For 35 years, our friendship had been like the morning sun: steady and consistent.

I told Emily the Warriors symbolized everything a person should do in life — show up, work hard, and take care of your team. I described head coach Steve Kerr’s team slogan, “Strength in numbers.” A rallying cry: We’re in this together. Each number had a story.

5: the players on the court, obviously.

11: the guys on the bench Kerr sees as equally important; team cohesion and depth define the Warriors.

20,000: the approximate number of roaring, euphoric fans in Oracle Arena each game night.

But then, suddenly, one April morning in that 2016 golden spring of Warriors fever, the numbers turned on me.

4: the stage of Emily’s breast cancer.

39: our age at the time.

1: the number of years the doctors said she had left to live.

OF ALL HER EXQUISITE QUALITIES, perhaps my favorite was Emily’s uncanny ability to see a bright light where others saw only darkness. “I’ve gotten everything I could have ever wanted in this life,” she said to me after sharing her news. “Anything I get from now on will be extra.”

Some people pray to a Christian God. Others call out to Vishnu. But I fell on my knees after I hung up the phone and begged the basketball gods to somehow, inexplicably, help her. Could the same divine grace that allowed human beings to consistently drain three-pointers from new depths also, in some way, save my friend?

From that point forward, what was initially a passion I shared with my kids became the way my best friend and I focused on joy and life, rather than the very real possibility of death. I flew to Atlanta two weeks later, on the day of her Gamma Knife radiation to attack the cancer in her brain. “Should I bring the kids?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. “I want your kids to know mine.” At the San Francisco airport, I picked up blue Warriors hats and yellow bracelets for our five children, then ages 7 through 12.

Emily embraced the Warriors ferociously. Just as she did my husband, my children, and everything else I loved. Her affinity for the Dubs was remarkable given that she lived in Atlanta Hawks territory, but it was clear they personified her fierce optimism. And after I left Atlanta, it became the language of hope we spoke from coast to coast. “Which ones are cool but aren’t too expensive?” we asked, comparing notes about which Steph Curry high-tops to buy our sons. We shared screenshots of Steph holding a sign saying “Be the best version of yourself every single day.” Our younger selves would never have guessed that our 35 years of friendship would culminate in an intense, shared love of a professional basketball team.

Yes, there was chemo. There was more radiation, a battery of appointments, cold caps to save her hair. But when 7:30 p.m. rolled around, there was also the Warriors. It’s hard to say whether we spent more time watching the games or staring into the backlight of our smartphones, sending texts to shrink the 2,500-mile distance between us. We shared GIFs, memes, and other digital amusements that were as new to us as our love of basketball. When Steph nailed his signature warm-up shot, launching the ball from the tunnel that leads to the locker room — essentially an impossible trick shot that only he could make, with astonishing accuracy — it felt like everything was right in the universe.

We adored each player more than the next. Of course, we both had a soft spot for Steph Curry, the dreamy super- star point guard, but we loved him for different reasons. Emily, a faithful Christian, liked the way he tapped his chest after a successful shot, how he lifted his index finger to say thank you to the heavens. “He’s just such a good person,” she said. She bought her son his “I Can Do All Things” poster, a reference to Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I just found him straight-up sexy. Those eyes. That smile.

But when it came to Draymond Green, we were united in the way we adored him. We went bonkers over how he cared for his mother. “Did you know he bought her a house?” Emily asked. We loved his childhood nickname. “Day Day!” Emily would text me during the games whenever Draymond blocked a shot, stuck out his tongue, and flexed his biceps in his now infamous, look-at-these-muscles move.

TAKING OUR KIDS, each of our two sons and my daughter, to a game at Oracle Arena was an easy decision. We selected the Oklahoma City Thunder game on a Thursday night in November. Our tickets cost more than my first semester of college. “You only live once?” Emily said, laughing. By the time game night arrived, Emily’s condition had worsened — more from the treatment than the disease itself, it seemed — but she still managed to fly to San Francisco. We drove to Oakland and stepped into Oracle Arena as the lights dimmed. The players huddled and danced like there was no tomorrow.

Two minutes into the game, Steph lobbed a three-pointer. While the ball was still in midair, he turned around and started walking, his back to the hoop. A second later, it went in so perfectly that the net barely moved. Emily looked me in the eye, and as only the closest of friends can do, we knew what the other was thinking. For that one moment, the reality that our time together might be running out melted away. There was only joy. It was pure, cosmic — pristine.

Fourteen months later, on a cold January afternoon in Atlanta, Emily died. I was sitting on the front steps of her house when her husband came out to tell me. Two days earlier, I had held her hand and kissed her on the cheek a final time. “I don’t want you to leave,” she had said before I left, as usual taking the words right out of my mouth.

WE BURIED HER ON A THURSDAY. Friends made a slideshow for the crowd of 800 that came to her service. I included the photo of us with the kids at the Warriors game. In that image, my smile is genuine; I didn’t think she would die. The day after her funeral, I took my laminated United States dollar bill — the one with Steph Curry on it, as if he were president — out of my wallet. I tucked it away in a drawer in my closet.

What a fool I was to think we were immune from the cold, hard facts of mortality. But for that one brilliant basketball season, I believed in the impossible.

Tonight I am taking my son back to Oracle Arena to see the Warriors play the Los Angeles Lakers. Before we leave the house, I scroll through my old texts with Emily for the thousandth time. I remember how excited she was to watch the Warriors play, just weeks before she died. One text reads: “About to watch the Dubs! Are you?” followed by rows of yellow and blue heart emojis. But now I feel betrayed by my team. Like somehow it was their fault. I was duped; how could I have been so naive?

But I look at her words again, and it dawns on me. It was never about whether the half-court buzzer-beater would fall in but instead what two old friends — unlikely basketball fanatics on opposites coasts — could share together when they believed it was possible.

I put my phone down to tell my son it’s time to leave for Oakland. I wish Emily and I could still communicate during the game like we used to.

But in a way, we just did.

APRIL 2019 REAL SIMPLE

The One Mistake Almost Every Writer Makes—and How to Fix It

Thank you all for the incredible feedback on THE PROCESS. It’s a system I’m putting together to transform how you sell (and ultimately, create) your writing — whether it’s an essay, an op-ed, or a book — for massive impact and compensation. Anyone can use use it and I’ve found it usually works no matter what you are writing.

Many of you noted that your biggest writing challenge is selling into an insanely competitive and oversaturated market. I hear you. How do you get your essay picked up? Your book bid on at a 6-figure level? How do you get The New York Times to want your op-ed?

I struggled with this and see many other writers do the same. The problem? Writers typically think about marketing their work as the last step, rather than the first. Flip this and it will transform your success. How? You need a UDF (Unique Differentiating Factor). But I’m getting ahead of myself. . .

Most writers focus on the writing and then try to find an audience. This “spray and pray” method works for the 2% who can write a NYT bestseller in their sleep.

The rest of us need to look at each piece of writing like a new cutting-edge product we’ve developed. We need to view our book concept like a new company we’re launching. We need to think much harder about what we should write about, long before we open Google Docs to pen the first word.

You can create the greatest writing or product in the world and still bomb with depressing sales. (See Segway fail, the innovation that was supposed to change the world — except no one wanted it.) Before you figure out what to write, you need to back up even further. What writing “product” do you have the credentials and the experience to create? (Unless you plan to fake it until you (precariously?) make it a la Elizabeth Holmes, Dropout-style . . . )

Before you even type one letter, you need to figure out your UDF. Unique (something novel you have to say). Differentiating (no one else has already said it). Factor (element that is new and not yet said before). You can have several UDFs, by the way, but more on that later!

As a literary agent, I can tell you: I read piles of submissions on topics that are unique to the individual writer but not to the broader world: death, cancer, divorce, abuse, transformation, success, a new habit we all need, a way to make money, a skillset or area of expertise that will change the world — I pass on 95% of them. The ones that do get my attention have one thing in common: a very clear UDF.

(Pro tip: What feels unique to you is often common and mundane to the world. Editor translation: No UDF — Boring, pass.)

Here’s how I found a UDF and used it to sell an essay for $6k and how you can, too.

Next up, I’ll share what to do after you’ve identified your UDF as finding it is just the first step in this process.

Jackie

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