On Building A Better Content Diet
The media we consume makes us better creators
Jessica Lynn says “Consumption feeds creation. When you read other writers, whether books, blogs, newspapers, or magazines, it sparks your creativity. Ideas feed on each other. You start to make connections and patterns. Especially when you stick to a few topics.”
She’s right. I find after reading essays on different elements of the fantasy genre, I’ve got a bunch more ideas for pieces I want to write. Even if I don’t get to them for a couple of weeks. So I make a list of these things and then put it away. The ideas that keep pecking at the back of my mind are the first ones I’ll write about.
We can’t predict how well one of our pieces will do in the future. What we can control however is our end of the equation. We can control our ideation process, our commitment to producing higher-quality articles and stories, and our support of other writers. Part of that ideation process is our content diet.
What is a ‘content diet’? Simply put, it’s what we feed our brains every day. Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Substack newsletters, blogs, magazine articles, books, Medium stories, YouTube videos, podcasts, courses both in-person and online, and even the ingredients list in a new cereal is content to a worldbuilder. Just like our bodies are only as healthy as what we feed our stomachs, our thought processes and decision-making are only as wise as what we feed our brains. Bingeing an entire season of some fluffy time-waster on Netflix may or may not be amusing, but you won’t learn as much as you will from an evening of documentaries about the threats to the lungs of our planet or endangered species.
Let’s say there’s a local election coming up, but you don’t really know what the candidates stand for. So you delve into some research, and you study interviews with all the candidates until you have a good idea whose position most closely aligns with your own beliefs. After some time, you know who you want to vote for. You can now make a wiser, more informed decision than if you had spent that time just watching your favorite movie. Better content diet = better decision.
But just watching hours of news coverage isn’t enough to improve your content consumption. You have to figure out how to filter through the barrage of information and decipher truth from hype. The best way to do this is to watch, listen to, and read a number of news sources. Mainstream and less-than-mainstream.
Read smarter books. I love fiction, but I try to mix my nonfiction and fiction 1 for 1. Books like ‘The World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman, which is a terrific thought experiment that will teach you more about the world than you might expect.
‘Astrophysics For People in a Hurry’ by Neil deGrasse Tyson, in which the author reminds us, “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This book is an indescribable gem that taught me what ecological consciousness really is. Among other things.
‘Caste’, by Isabel Wilkerson. I’ve not read this one yet, but a friend promises it’ll change how I see the world.
‘Coffeeland’, by Augustine Sedgewick The history of coffee opens up a new perspective on how the globalized world works, what it means to be connected to faraway people, and the familiar things that make up our day-to-day lives.
‘Six Degrees’ by Mark Lynas promises an eye-opening look at what will happen to our planet as it increasingly warms, degree by frightening degree.
I could go on and on here about some of the intelligent books that we should be reading, and I might continue this specific discussion in another essay. But for now, let me just encourage you to go wandering through the aisles of a bookstore (brick & mortar or cyber, whichever you prefer) with the aim of learning something new. You’ll be a smarter and better-informed person for it, I promise.
If you write, change your content diet for the better and you’ll inevitably change the quality of your work.
Write quality and your readers will find you. Blow those readers’ minds, and they’ll follow you almost anywhere.
Tell me, what’s on your non-fiction TBR list?
I feel caught out by this article, but in a good way! 😊 My usual reading time is in bed just before sleep, so I tend to read a LOT of good but not very challenging SFF books--because I want to sleep after reading, not get myself worked up! But I should set aside some time during the day to read more nonfiction books. I have an Amazon list of them as long as my arm that I keep not getting to. Braiding Sweetgrass is definitely on there! Here are a few of mine:
Currently reading: Chokepoint Capitalism, by Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin, Karen Joy Fowler
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit
Oh wow I am looking over them all....so many...and I want to start reading them now.... 📖 🥰