Helloooo creative friends,

Welcome to the creative entrepreneurs who joined us over the past 2 weeks 🎉 This drop's featured creator is writer, director, and world-builder, Justice Parman.

Remember, this drop has 2 pieces: A newsletter, and a podcast.

Ready to level up? Read on to...

🚀 Get an even better experience with Create Connected
🎤 Learn how Justice guides and directs great stories across media
🧰 Capture your ideas daily and never come up short on an outline again
💭 Consider the art and craft of making great conversation
👁‍🗨 Use this phrase to help you recall this drop’s big lessons

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Let's dive in,
Jameson

Fun fact: 90% of podcasts don’t make it past episode 3. This is our equivalent of episode 3! We’re nearly out of dodge.

If you’ve liked Create Connected so far I have a favor to ask. Pick (at least) one:

1. Reply to this email with one thing you love about Create Connected
2. Reply to this email with one thing I should change in Create Connected
3. "Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight" (credit)

As we exit Death Valley of Podcasts, I’d love to know your thoughts on Create Connected so far.

I’ve been working on reading minds, but the right antennae seem to be on back order and my mechanic keeps murmuring something about “De Niro Links”.

This helps you get better content by telling me where to focus my efforts ❤️

For this drop, I connected with writer, director, world-builder and USC Film School grad Justice Parman.

In the podcast, we discussed how curiosity drives creativity, how to capture and connect great but disparate ideas, and soooo much more.

Here are some of the highlights.

Grow your Idea Wall and capture the “why”

There’s an essence to be captured from the creative ideas your brain generates day-to-day. Justice shared how he builds an “Idea Wall” and uses it to seed the stories that become full scripts. Tap here to hear more.

Present yourself as a good guide
Before subverting your audience’s expectations, it helps to show them that you know what you’re doing. Justice and I explored how this affirms to your audience that the payoff will be worth it, while sharing some hilarious imagery to drive it home. Tap here to hear more.

​Build creative collaboration using TTRPGs

Tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons provide an intimate, collaborative space to create and build stories with others. Justice shared how directing characters around a collectively imagined scene is a lot like a film set, and drew some other parallels between D&D and creative collaboration. Tap here to hear more.

Listen to the full episode on:

The problem: You watch good ideas come and go throughout the day, but when you sit down to actually start creating something your mind goes blank.

The solution: (c/o Justice Parman) Start an Idea Wall and capture the “why”

How to do it:

1. Pick a place to write your daily ideas (phone, pocket notebook, …)
2. Quickly (and safely) jot down fleeting ideas as they come up
3. Then flip to the “back” of the note (or mark a separate section on the page)
4. Write down what you were feeling and doing when the idea came to you
5. Regularly post those ideas up in a central place (a wall, a main notebook, …)
6. Once this Idea Wall becomes overwhelmingly full, allocate some time to…
7. Start connecting the ideas and using them to build a story
8. If you think an idea is stale, review the “why” on the back of the note
9. Use these connected ideas to form an outline of a story

This month I’ve been building a system that helps anyone learn how to start and have good conversations with friends they haven’t met yet (strangers).

As I’ve captured some of my knowledge on the topic, I’ve been finding even deeper enjoyment in talking to others. It’s given me even more enthusiasm and curiosity to learn more about the incredible people that surround us each and every day.

Conversation is something you create with other people, and I don’t think it gets enough credit as an art form. But if I hear a great conversationalist dance through discourse, it’s hard to ignore the artistry in using chat to build connection with others.

Once a chat has gone beyond its opening phrases, here are 3 questions that usually jog through my mind. I find they spark deeper curiosity about the person I’m speaking with:

1. What’s this person’s story, and how do they see themselves in it?
2. What are some things they currently can’t get enough of?
3. What is this person’s superpower? Do they know it?

A phrase to help you explore, reorient, and deepen thoughts on this drop's topics.

The best way to help Create Connected is to nominate someone creative (it can be you) to be interviewed for the podcast + newsletter. Just fill out this simple form so I can reach out.

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