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This week we kick things off with a shockingly sad discussion about Ray Liotta and the bizarre internet phenomenon of seemingly widespread celebrity death Mandela effects. That morphs into a conversation about fading news cycles, Scorsese movies, and Kevin's extremely unpopular opinion on The Wolf of Wall Street.

After that, we dive into the REAL focus of the episode – a writing technique with a ridiculous name that might actually save your creative projects: Elfing.

We trace the origins of the concept back through filmmaker Zach Krieger all the way to legendary Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder, whose seemingly crude writing philosophy could actually be the key to getting things DONE.

From there, we zoom out to tackle a much bigger challenge in creative work: learning how to separate your identity from what you make. Why do so many people instinctively defend every sentence of an early draft? Why is accepting feedback so difficult? And why do so many promising writers stall out before they ever finish anything?

Along the way, we discuss the realities of editing, the balance between writing for yourself versus writing for an audience, and the constant tension between artistic honesty and commercial appeal.

Big thanks to our patrons, and we'll see you next week!

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CREDITS:

Hosts: Kevin Lieber and Matt Tabor

Executive Producer: Ben Webster

Editor: Spencer Vann

"Created in the Unknown" theme by Basswaite: https://linktr.ee/Basswaite

Theme by Mega Drive → http://megadrivemusic.com

Opening Animation: Kidmograph

City Animation: Eric Langlay

"The Create Unknown" is produced by Unknown Media.

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