Can stress make you a better writer?

You could see the movie, Jobs, but you may just need to read an Aaron Sorkin interview about its narrative structure. Also, tight deadlines might make you a better writer, and always remember to focus on the details of things.

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Tips from this week’s roundup: Approach a daunting writing task with confidence, stress can make your writing more powerful and travel writing still requires work.

Sorkin on Jobs: When you’re writing on a subject that’s been endlessly covered, how do you approach it? Do you read all the other stories, or deliberately avoid them at the risk of unintentionally stealing an idea?

Aaron Sorkin had the ultimate challenge and subject when it came to this problem (that happens a lot to Aaron Sorkin). He spoke with Wired about how he approached writing the new Steve Jobs movie, and reflected on that feeling all writers have when staring at nothing but a blinking cursor.

I’m nervous before I do anything. It’s just standing at the bottom of a mountain and looking up with no clear path of how you’re going to get to the top. But in this case, it was particularly daunting for me as I didn’t know that much about Steve Jobs, and the idea of doing a biopic was daunting.

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