The history of inventions is full of triumphal screwups. Doors carelessly left open. Or unlocked by the gods, letting in flies, criminals, scary winds…and great creations. Inspiration rarely comes from a bolt from the blue.

Inspiration, I think, is an individual phenomenon. We can wait for it, prompt it, play with combinations of existing ideas—or, in this post, refine a half-formed idea into a Platonic ideia of your intentions.

I used “model thinking” to write my novel. Writing fiction really is a form of modeling. You describe a set of characters and put them in a particular situation; in AI parlance, you “train” your story. Then you determine the likeliest course of action for each character. You’re building a model.

To get inspired to solve a problem, you want to define the problem as precisely as you want. In rhetoric, we call the problem the exigence: the exact thing that needs solving.

When I think about the best ideas I’ve had, most of them didn’t come out of the blue. Instead, my new idea simply combined two other ideas—usually not my own. It’s a matter of compounding, combining two elements to make a different…thought molecule?

A new idea can come from any of these four sources: Compounding, Modeling, Refining, and Receiving. In this first of several posts, I talk about inspiration, ideas, and how not all inspiration involves ideas in the first place.

The three habits: 1) Openness. 2) Combination and discovery. 3) Bad writing. It’s amazing how easy number three is. And how hard we find number one.

Educators are understandably freaking out about robots writing students’ papers for them. But maybe, just maybe, there’s an opportunity here.

Arguments often involve people who agree with you, but don’t see the issue as a priority. What can you do to up level of passion?

The backronym starts with a word and then tortures other words to make…a word. Now you try!

A new AI enables students to argue with famous characters, dead or alive — and maybe pretend they’re famous themselves.

Aristotle has the answer, as Aristotle often does. And, without ripping off a million investors, you can use the same tool to become a superhero in your own field.

How Santa’s wife saved Christmas — and the marriage.

How do you know which tools of persuasion to use in real life?

It’s hard to know what tools to use in the spur of the moment. The good news: You don’t have to.

Framing lets you take the high ground on any issue—whether you’re talking sibling selfishness… or smoking.

Only the French could look at galoshes and think of amour.

Several days a week, I do a video chat with students. Here’s a transcript of one.

A great way to practice public speaking is to channel a famous speaker or celebrity.

I often get asked for the tractor-beam line that will 100% win a partner. My answer: It’s not a line. It’s a rhetorical strategy.