Embrace Constraints to Unleash Creativity

Writing a manifesto about your philosophy is a horribly self-involved thing to do. 

Common wisdom says that your site should actually not be about you at all. Rather it should be about your customers. At least it should be about what they can get from you. 

We decided to go with it. 

I’d written about six versions before I decided it really wasn’t working. I thought about why it wasn’t working. Because it definitely wasn’t. 

I remember reading somewhere that writing free-verse poetry was like playing tennis with the net down. I wasn’t trying to write poetry, but certainly the net was nowhere in sight. And I couldn’t hit a winner for the life of me. 

So I thought about imposing more restraints on myself. I thought about imposing a rhyme scheme. 

Around the same time, I also read somewhere that iambic pentameter, despite its fanciful soundings, was used largely because it was the voice of the man on the street. We all talk in iambic pentameter without even realising it. It’s da dum, da dum rhythms are said to mimic human heartbeats. It’s a big reason that Shakespeare was such a fan. 

Five words, each one made up of two syllables, each one with the first syllable unstressed and the second syllable stressed. 

I liked the idea of using something that was so common. Because a manifesto about the writing process had always sounded like something that could become dangerously worthy. 

Suddenly it had some shape, it had some challenges. 

This was a good reminder that often what creative work needs is a problem to overcome, a challenge to meet. And if it doesn’t have one, sometimes you need to make one up. 

Your work will always be better.