Pushing the Bounds of Curiosity, Language, and the Creative Process with Jessica Hagy

Jessica Hagy is an artist, writer, and creator of the award-winning blog, Indexed. She uses visual storytelling to let readers draw their own conclusions and actively participate in each narrative. Since 2006, Jessica has been a freelance illustrator for clients around the world. Her diagrams and illustrations depict everything from business strategies to sly puns.

Jessica’s work has been published in various web formats, galleries, books, magazines, newspapers, television outlets, and advertising campaigns. She is also the author of many books, including How to Be Interesting and The Art of War Visualized.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Jessica Hagy talks about why she started her blog and how it flourished over just a few days
• How Jessica factors learning into her creative process
• The benefits of working in many different industries
• Jessica’s insight into why people share her content — and strategies for incorporating feedback
• What are the steps you should take for consistently posting your content?
• How to improve as a writer and creator
• Jessica’s tips for expanding on your curiosity
• How Jessica shapes language and coins new words

In this episode…

Are you a creator looking to find inspiration and gain a new perspective about the world? Do you want to improve your creative process and publish content across multiple industries?

As a widely known writer, artist, and creator, Jessica Hagy is combining humor, visual design, and storytelling to make something unique. Her exploration of language, translations, and the origin of words has led her to a niche that spans across industries where she can transform how we look at the world. This line of creative work has allowed her to expand her curiosity, and now she’s here to share her methods with you.

In this episode of The Michael Simmons Show, writer and artist Jessica Hagy talks with host Michael Simmons about how she creates content. Jessica shares exercises that help her stay curious, tips for posting content consistently, and strategies for incorporating feedback and engaging with an audience. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Michael Simmons on LinkedIn
• Michael Simmons
• Michael Simmons on Medium
• Jessica Hagy on LinkedIn
• Jessica Hagy’s website
• Jessica Hagy’s blog, “Indexed” 
• How to Be Interesting: (In 10 Simple Steps) by Jessica Hagy
• The Art of War Visualized: The Sun Tzu Classic in Charts and Graphs by Jessica Hagy
• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by my company, Seminal.

We help you create blockbuster content that rises above the noise, changes the world, and builds your business.

To learn about creating blockbuster content, read my article: Blockbuster: The #1 Mental Model For Writers Who Want To Create High-Quality, Viral Content 

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:02

Welcome to The Michael Simmons Show where we help you create blockbuster content that changes the world and builds your business. We dive deep into the habits and hacks of today’s top thought leaders. Now, here’s the show.

Michael Simmons  0:15

I am really excited about today’s guest. Like really excited. Her name is Jessica Hagy. And she has produced over 6,000 diagrams or images, and seven books her cop her books have sold hundreds of 1000s of copies. Her images have been seen millions and even 10s of millions of times. It has been published in Forbes and Quartz and Business Insider. And even beyond all of those accomplishments. I really admire that Jessica has done craft innovation, that she’s found the format of way of sharing images and get across funny, complex topics in a very simple and funny way. And even at a deeper level. Jessica is a genius you’re about to see this. She’s one of those people who really really understands the language at a very fundamental level images at a fundamental level, and understands how to translate between them, like she breaks down sentences into their studs, then is able to turn the sentence into a mathematical formula, and then is able to turn that into a Venn diagram, a dot plot, a graph. And her way of thinking has really changed how my mind works, helped me be a better content creator, but also even a better thinker. So without further ado, let’s jump in. So, Jessica 6,000 visual, how did you? How did you get to that? What was the schedule that you started with? And what is your schedule now.

Jessica Hagy  1:51

Um, so when I started drawing these, I was posting two or three a day. And then I started posting one officially every weekday and doing the rest as client work. So I’ve been posting, posting one officially to my, to my blog since 2006. Every

Michael Simmons  2:11

day to your blog,

Jessica Hagy  2:13

one per day, wow, unless something catastrophic happens, like a computer dies, or I have to fly somewhere. And yeah, that’s been the system. And so over time, I’ve just accumulated this vast, shoebox full many shoeboxes full of diagrams.

Michael Simmons  2:31

And how did you determine that? Okay, I’m going to do GM to go from, you know, zero to every once in a while, sporadically to Okay, I’m gonna do two to three per day and really make a commitment to this. What was it? Like? How time where were you in life?

Jessica Hagy  2:46

Let’s see, I was think I was about 28. And I was I just wanted to just put a blog up, I had read that every writer needs a blog. But I didn’t want to do one of those, like, here’s my breakfast situation. And so I was I mean stealable office supplies, index cards fit that fit that pretty well. And I had

Michael Simmons  3:07

it right away, how long did it take you to get the index cards. Um, I had that inside as a,

Jessica Hagy  3:14

I knew I could fit three on a scanner. And so that seemed like an efficient way to get images created back in 2006, before everybody had cell phones. And it was a sort of a creative constraint. So the smaller the space you have, the less you can ramble. And the more just concise and succinct you have to be. So using that format was really sort of freeing and forced me into exactly the objects that I ended up making. And it was already sort of a built-in branding element so that if somebody saw an index card, it became associated with me, which I right away,

Michael Simmons  3:52

you had, like how did you before you even had these ideas? Or these Venn diagrams on index cards? Was there a version before that?

Jessica Hagy  4:04

Nope. I just I started the blog on a I think on a Friday, or a Wednesday. And the next week, it was all over the internet. And I had a literary agent. And it was a thing, though, I just kept doing it.

Michael Simmons  4:18

Wow. And I know you have an MFA in creative writing. Did you have a background and what was your background didn’t design at that point.

Jessica Hagy  4:25

At that point, I was a copywriter at the Victoria’s Secret headquarters outside of Columbus, Ohio. And I was selling underpants to little children. And it was really, it was almost as dark of a gig as writing how to how to get subprime mortgage from JPMorgan Chase, which was the job I had directly before that. And so I was getting my MBA at night at the time I started the blog. I think that really informed a lot of the graphic language of it, because that was so much more formal as well. To underpants, horoscopes.

Michael Simmons  5:05

And so you’re you had a full-time job. And you’re going to MBA night and you start to do a blog. How did you find the time or make this a priority? I imagine you’re pretty dead tired at the end of the day?

Jessica Hagy  5:17

No, actually I was just I’ve always drawn and doodled and sketched things. And as far as sort of formalizing a doodle into something that can be shared was really just keep them in your pocket, and don’t get them like, Don’t keep them wrinkled. And as long as I have 20 seconds to scan and upload every day, I should be should be okay, if I keep my art supplies on my person.

Michael Simmons  5:38

And so before you had, you didn’t necessarily have as much training in Visual Arts, but you did a lot of doodling.

Jessica Hagy  5:44

Yeah, I mean, I worked with advertising enough that I was familiar with all of the design programs. And I mean, I knew enough to be dangerous, but not professional. And so a little bit more practice with this. And I built my own sort of what would be the phrase sort of toolkit of things that I knew that I needed to do to get things up.

Michael Simmons  6:11

And, you know, one of the big parts of the writing journey or skill mastery in any domain is what I call the learning valley of death. That beginning part, we’re trying to go from zero to one. And sometimes it could take years where you’re good enough where you rise above the noise, or months. But it sounds like if you did yours were kind of take off right away mentioning the literary agent produced. Yeah,

Jessica Hagy  6:34

I think too, I’d already been writing as a job and trying to think of ways to quickly get an idea across. And that had been my my gig for almost a decade at that point. So I think I had I had that skill, I just had to put it into a form that I could own.

Michael Simmons  6:54

And, okay, yeah, you have the writing, you had the training and the writing, and then also just the doodling. So there’s a way you found a way to combine two skills you already knew into something that was really unique online. And let’s see here. You know, one thing is, you the draws are very simple, but the ideas are really deep. And as curious. Look, how much do you is reading and research a part of your process to find material and how much time you know that per day?

Jessica Hagy  7:27

I think, oh, gosh, per day. I’m always reading at least two different books.

Michael Simmons  7:33

So it’s What are you reading right now? curiosity right

Jessica Hagy  7:36

now I’m reading, if you guys are at all into the idea of fungus is called Entangled Life. Oh, it’s fascinating. It’s about how funguses and everything and shapes everything we do. And then I’m also I also subscribe to Grantham which is Yeah, it’s a really good periodical like a literary magazine. The I think the editors are in London now.

Michael Simmons  8:02

Yeah, really interesting. I feel like the fact that those you have one book on literary magazine, another one on fungus, I feel like represents your, you know, also the topics you jump across. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see those diverse topics in your in your drawings. Yeah.

Jessica Hagy  8:21

Yeah, I don’t really confine myself to any one or two topics. But yeah, when I find something that’s, that’s really interesting to me, I sort of latch on to it, like my Velcro hooks are like, Oh, I’m sticking with this for a while. And I can really just sort of get into something.

Michael Simmons  8:37

There’s often a tension between, let’s say, focus, you know, the feel that there’s an idea that Okay, I have one niche, I should focus there. On the on the other hand, I feel like there’s more people who are being followed for their diverse interests. And you may not just for what they’re interested in at one point, has there ever been a tension for you to feel like, okay, I should, I should focus on just one thing, and I’m jumping around way too much?

Jessica Hagy  9:02

No, I think the one thing that I have found is that editors either have an idea of exactly what they want me to do, or they want to box me into a certain set of subjects. And because I am named Jessica and not John, I’ve been hired to write for a lot of women’s publications, which is the most frustrating thing because I’d rather write about fungus and bizarre ways things work. And I’ve been freelance for too long. So I really don’t understand that absolutely absolute current topics of women in the workplace. So that’s, that’s always a tough one. When they’re kind of like, this is who you are. And this is who you’re what you’re going to talk about. And it’s like, yeah, I can fake that pretty well, but it is a little bit awkward.

Michael Simmons  9:46

does not necessarily your readers, but if you’re working with editors or publications, they’re you’re feeling boxed in there.

Jessica Hagy  9:53

I think my editors are on the on the most. Most of them are pretty much like here. is a topic run with it go where you want. But sometimes it’s very stay in this lane that I need you to stay in. And that can really take sort of the the fun and spontaneity out of my work. So I have to be active, sort of thread that needle carefully to get good work done.

Michael Simmons  10:18

How do you think about threading is one of the in this course we do talk about as a Venn diagram, the different things of one is, let’s say product market fit, that there’s a market, they have needs, and you’re trying to solve those needs, which is Yeah, and then there’s also soul market fit of what you’re really interested in, and it’s hard to predict where it’s going to go, sometimes the dots don’t connect, looking forward. How do you thread the needle or anything you’ve learned about threading that,

Jessica Hagy  10:45

um, sometimes it’s it’s all about just like picking your battles, like I think we had a conversation once where it was, if you know what your what the person you’re working with, is really after it’s easier to work, it’s easier to do that, like some people are like, I want to save the world. And other people are like, I want to make $12 on this item every day. And figuring out who you’re working with and having enough projects going at once that you can be cool with doing a couple of those little tiny ones, and then not getting super bogged down in somebody. I’m going to save the world plan. So Hmm. Yeah, I think having a lot of things going at once helps me to see that none of them are absolute make or break.

Michael Simmons  11:25

Hmm, yeah, there’s this theory within creativity research by Howard Gruber, around networks of enterprise, a lot of the most creative people are not just working on one thing all the time. They’re working on a whole network of ideas that cross-fertilize and pollinate each other. And if one hits a dead end, then the other ones always there.

Jessica Hagy  11:44

Yeah. The other I think we talked about this two months is the lottery ticket theory of creative work, where everything you make is sort of a lottery ticket, and you don’t know if it’s going to like turn into something huge and famous. But the more you make, the more chances you have one of them sticking. And I think that happens too, because sometimes I’ll draw something and I’ll be like, that is perfect. And nobody will like it. And I’ll draw something like just sort of a throwaway. Like if it gets shared, like 7000 times. So yeah.

Michael Simmons  12:15

How? How do you think about the process of what it takes to get a blockbuster? So you mentioned just a little bit there and output there. But you know, how do you factor in learning that you’re getting better in each time you create a drawing?

Jessica Hagy  12:33

Yeah, I think that the just over time, you sort of just be get this discernment for what will work and what will stick and how that sort of stuff happens. And the other thing I found is the timing of posting things. And it changes like slowly. But it’s always been if I can get something out in the mornings, it’s better than in the evenings. It’s just a function of time zones. And like, Who’s online when and when you’re going to hit that population.

Michael Simmons  13:00

And in the course, we have this idea of, you know, 25 minute posts, or they’re shorter posts, build up to longer posts, something longer. And so you’ve had this model where you have a short post on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and you do you have a bunch of articles and magazines that drive business inside or other places that combine those images. And then you have seven books. How do you think about that I capture how you view it? And then how do you think about taking, what goes, how those relate to each other?

Jessica Hagy  13:35

And I always think of every single thing I do is in some way, an advertisement for every other single thing I do. So yeah, so everything that is definitely mine is definitely pointing people toward my home pages and googling me and figuring things out. And so every time I put something else out there, everything else is sort of fed on it. So it’s not like anything exists entirely on its own. But everything does have to sort of link back to itself.

Michael Simmons  14:08

You try to create a body of work in advance. In other words, okay, there’s a bunch of topics on one area, they seem to be interesting, I’m going to combine them or is a lot of it often is just you connecting the dots looking backwards, and you’re just really just following your curiosity under

Jessica Hagy  14:25

a lot like the more the more curious I get, the more satisfying that is for my readers. So if I were to just have stuck to only writing about business topics, I don’t think I would have been able to do as many of the really interesting projects as I’ve gotten to do. And because I do sort of go all over the place at that every now and then I’ll just attract a different niche market that’ll just find me all of a sudden So, oh, this month I did a podcast with a coaching organization and now all these coaches are using my work. In their, in their presentations, and before that it was the future of education and how UNESCO is looking at what schooling is going to look like in five years. And so I’m part of those subsets too. And I think because I am flexible and can draw all sorts of topics, I get to work with all sorts of different people. Like in advertising, the one of the cool things is that when you get a new client, you get to learn about an entirely new industry. And I always thought that was really super fascinating. And you’re not hired because you have a specialty in an industry you’re hired because you have a specialty and create in creative work. So doing more industrial, different, lots of different industries, I think is something that if you’re good enough at your creative stuff, you get to do that.

Michael Simmons  15:45

Yeah, yeah. So there’s one hand you’re cross-pollinating ideas across fields, but also from an audience building perspective. It really sounds like you’re able to pick up people from different fields as well. versus if you’re just in one. It’s Oh, yeah, missing out on a lot of people.

Jessica Hagy  16:02

And I, a lot of times, I don’t even know what, who’s going to really latch on to a topic. So I can draw something about timeliness or timezones or something just kind of universal. And it’ll latch on to one subset of some industry, and all of a sudden, it’s like, 17, postal carriers followed you today. And

Michael Simmons  16:27

yeah, it’s really interesting. What’s been your, what’s been most surprising about that, in terms of I noticed that too, if I write up well, I can obviously write about learning that, you know, people who are learning coaches or teachers are going to share and things like that. Have you? Have you been surprised? Just now that you have so much data on seeing people share your posts and why they share your posts? Have you been surprised at why people share your posts?

Jessica Hagy  16:54

Um, I think I’m always surprised when something goes like really, really viral. And I can, there’s really not a lot of rhyme or reason to those specific items. Because they tend to be all over the place like Santa’s abusing his elves. Like somehow that became like a thing. And there’s no industry that attached to that. But watching how people do share has become really interesting, too, because over time, it used to be like everyone posted their own version. And now it’s just links around. So they’re retweeting and the sharing on Facebook is a whole different sort of way to see how people tag each other.

Michael Simmons  17:34

Hmm. Have you seen any been any surprises or things that people wouldn’t expect? When you see people annotate your images with their own comments or tag people?

Jessica Hagy  17:45

Um, I have their use, there was a thing that went around like four years ago, where it was a meme of fixed it for you. And people would take my diagrams and like, change it somehow and then say, fixed it for you. And I thought, and my readers would just swarm on those people and be like, Don’t you dare. That stopped happening, I think it just became sort of a tedious meme. But just watching how things do get changed. And knowing that if you do have like a loyal reading base, people, you don’t have to, you don’t have to do anything, if there’s some sort of weird sketchy trollish behavior, because your people will come to your rescue.

Michael Simmons  18:26

jump a little bit, actually, before I jump, if you had to break down. Yeah, I find it interesting of why people share things in general. And we’ve talked in the course and titles about a formula of coca, you know, something is counterintuitive or surprising. This one, the second one wouldn’t apply to as much your type of writing but outcome-based that helps them achieve an outcome. A curiosity is the see and then authority. If you had a breakdown of the core reasons why people share in general, or your unique insight, and why people share, why do you think that is?

Jessica Hagy  19:01

I think I try to draw things that people can look at and say, Yeah, that’s true, or Yeah, that’s me. And if I can get to that deep sort of universality of something, then I know that I’ve, I’ve put something out there that people can get quickly and say, like, yeah, that’s me that works. And those are the things that people share the most, I think, or something that’s like, Oh, this is this is brutally true. And if it’s just sort of a pun, or a silly thing that gets some traction, but never as much as something that people like, then on the wall of their office.

Michael Simmons  19:39

What do you feel like it is about a brutal or really deep truth that the way you’re doing it or why are people why is that the thing people share?

Jessica Hagy  19:48

I think well, I sometimes like a really funny thing will get a lot of traction, but also just sort of like reading the room of the times. Right now. Things that are a little bit late. a hard pill to swallow type stuff is getting a lot more, a lot more traction. And I think that just might be sort of a zeitgeist-y sensation that people are people are looking for something a little, a little more bite, as opposed to something like fun and soft. Like, cat pictures are not taking over the internet right now. And I wish they would I wish they not.

Michael Simmons  20:23

That was a 2012 thing. How do you think about video one things we talked a lot about in this is a course is number one is output. But then number two is a feedback loop our way of improving and you just talked about just reading this I guys that the times you’re obviously getting a lot of feedback, since all the work. All your work is out there, though you might be just taking it unconsciously. But is there a way that you think about feedback and getting feedback or improving on your post?

Jessica Hagy  20:55

If anything is very specific, and I hear it more than three times it’s probably true. If things are if the same, if I hear the same thing over and over and over again, that’s something to pay attention to. If it’s some one off random comment. It might be hilarious. Or it might be mean or it might be something but usually the one offs that don’t fit into a set with other with other bits of feedback are sort of bad data, I guess, if you’re going to really streamline things. But yeah, you can you can learn a lot, just by kind of keeping your ear to your own replies

Michael Simmons  21:30

would be an example of something you’ve heard three times and you’re like, Oh, this could be really big. And then you start to focus on that you notice Oh, wow, there’s something here?

Jessica Hagy  21:39

Um,

gosh, I need what is a good recent example of that? Oh, I had one I have a diagram that was a failure of imagination and the triumph of misery. And it was when people say that’s just the way things are. And people sharing things that way. And then they were, they were saying, okay, so if we have this only what is the word for that? What is the word for that? And I was like, I don’t know. And I’ve been looking for that word for a couple of weeks. Like, there should be some sort of long Germanic word that that captures that that sensation is,

Michael Simmons  22:19

what’s your process for looking for that word? How are you thinking about it?

Jessica Hagy  22:24

You know, I just because I don’t speak German, but I have been, I got a new phone, and it has this translation program in it. So I’ve been throwing things in there just to see what I get. And throwing that into google translate to see like, if there’s a good like break and translation, if there’s something funny or interesting. And that’s been a really like kind of a new thing for me to just like, play with words until they break and see what I can get out of it.

Michael Simmons  22:49

I think you say that in a different way? Or what do you mean by you play with a word till a break? Or there’s a break in translation?

Jessica Hagy  22:57

Um, so let’s say like something, something gets lost, or something gets changed. It goes from pet to dog to beast to dragon, and all of a sudden, it’s like, Wait, is a dog a dragon? And how did you get there? And what are the links that, that bring that back around? Like, Oh, these are dinosaur bones? No, it’s a dragon. Like, how do you know it’s the same thing like this in like 1700. So playing with playing with something until you kind of get so far away from the original idea that you’re somewhere in somewhere else entirely? is sort of a cheap brainstorming my method, I guess.

Michael Simmons  23:40

Yeah, yeah, I saw when we had our call together, I can really see how you did that. Like you really followed a string and then just went in a lot of different places. So

Jessica Hagy  23:47

yeah, I’m very tangential. Yeah, yeah. And

Michael Simmons  23:53

on your routine side, do you have one image per day? Do? What are the steps to do that, starting from getting inspiration to your writing down? Good, I know you keep journals with less then penetrate the visual,

Jessica Hagy  24:09

I’ll just sort of start sketching things out. And sometimes I’ll draw something four or five times until I get the right tension in the image. But yeah, it really it is kind of taking a word and playing with a word until you get an idea out of it, or taking a statement and really massaging the statement into a visual.

Michael Simmons  24:31

And so for you you’ll with in terms of you’ll start with inspiration. And you mentioned before you you’re obviously reading a lot before you mentioned quote books. So how will you come across that word often or that idea? Is it just through your reading or?

Jessica Hagy  24:48

Yeah, I mean, I’ll end the other, like the rule of three online too, if you see something that keeps coming up and keeps coming up, but it’s not like Trump has COVID like what do I draw about that? Like, I have to take that as a tangent and be like, Okay, so this topic relates to this many people today in this way Why? And just sort of put bits and pieces together until I can pull a few words out and draw something that’s related to the topic, but not directly related to the topic.

Michael Simmons  25:19

Okay, so for example, the big news this morning is Trump has COVID. But when you see that you’re like, Okay, that’s everyone that’s interested. Yeah. What’s interesting about that, so you’re looking for tangents are unique. And half

Jessica Hagy  25:31

the time I do that I end up with, with drawings that aren’t related to that at all, but are interesting to me for different reasons. So I had I was doing Where did I put that had one, right before I hopped on with you guys, that was like, You can’t go on a playdate if you bite and kick and scream, or if you don’t wear your mask. So like, how does this? How does that totally work? And where’s that? Where’s that all going? And are we in the bad place? And I’ve just been, it’s early, but I’m getting there.

Michael Simmons  26:07

And, you know, for let’s say you pick an image and you start the day is it normally you start and end on one day on an image or it’s more, you’re working on five images at once? And then

Jessica Hagy  26:18

oh, always, always, at least six or seven? Something’s in the works. I’m wearing my if you can see my my desk here, it’s it’s pretty chaotic,

Michael Simmons  26:29

but have different note cards.

Jessica Hagy  26:31

Yes, but I know where everything is so

Michael Simmons  26:35

and so you’ll have six or seven. And then you’ll wake up in this morning, you saw Trump as COVID. And then you looked at the different things and then started using your technique of playing with the ideas or trying to having a word and trying to just iterations off of it.

Jessica Hagy  26:48

Yeah. And also just seeing sort of sometimes the main topic that’s out there that’s running around, people just need a total break from that because it gets overwhelming quickly. Yeah. And like today, it might be I don’t want to post anything super topical, I want to post something absolutely weird and silly. And weird and silly might be the break people need from the just on slot of topical information.

Michael Simmons  27:18

And then these are my I think my final question here before we actually jump into the exercises, and feel free to everyone to post your questions in chat as well. But how do you think about getting better? Though, I’ve been in situation before when I was in college, I did one post per day and then in 2012. And I feel like my mistake, I was too focused on the output. And I wasn’t actually getting better. And the Spirit and sorry about my cat in the background when you start talking about Allah music.

Jessica Hagy  27:50

No, I, I wasn’t sure if that was yours or mine.

Michael Simmons  27:54

But how do you get better? I’m going to drop my video for a second.

Jessica Hagy  27:58

Yeah, so I want I know that I have to keep reading and staying on top of things. And so I was that was part of that need to get better when I was a copywriter was getting my MBA. And then in 2016, I went back and got the MFA. And I think that helped a lot. And really just sort of I don’t know what I don’t know. So I need other people to tell me things that I wouldn’t find on my own. And as curious as I can be I’m I am habitual. And I am curious in the same directions a lot of times. So getting other people to guide me a little bit is always really helpful. I think if I run into a I’m getting stale moment, I really have to sort of turn to people other than me to give me information.

Michael Simmons  28:47

All right, got a question here. Let’s see, from James Ashcroft. When Jessica has a nascent idea, how does she capture the idea’s essence to noodle on it later?

Jessica Hagy  28:59

That is totally just a jot a jot of a word they really think it’s it’s word-based first and then image-based. So you start with the words and then you can play with the image.

Michael Simmons  29:11

Now we’re gonna go a little bit deeper, later, but can you pay tell a little bit more about what that means? So if you take a word, and then you did already a little bit, but can you give another example of that?

Jessica Hagy  29:22

So let’s just say the word is lint. Like, for some reason, lint is just the fascinating, weird, hilarious little word to me. And I’m going to have it and I’m going to think about it. I’m going to think what is where is it? What is it? Why is it there? Like what’s it made of? What are the synonyms for it? who caused it? Is it What’s it related to what are the actions it invokes? Like, I’ll just build sort of a like pile of words until I have a story that I can sort of swoop through. And then from there, I’ll put a sentence together and then I’ll draw that sentence out.

Michael Simmons  29:53

Okay, wow, that was interesting on a few levels. What like so I’ve never really thought about what Words is interesting. I’ve been more in the ideas are interesting. But what makes an idea interest or word interesting to you like lint?

Jessica Hagy  30:08

Um, you never I mean, you never know. But you have that sensation where if you say a word like 100 times it feels foreign and unreal.

Michael Simmons  30:16

Yeah,

Jessica Hagy  30:16

I think every word like if you if it gives you that sort of like ASMR tingle, then you’re like, ooh, what is that? And playing with it and seeing like, what it can offer you is really sort of a Ooh, that’s fun. Or like, what’s in a magazine? Is it a gun magazine? Is it a fashion magazine? Like what is that word is like a lot of different letters and fields. Feel stretchy. So you can play with not just a topic, but a single word in the topic. And sometimes that can really stretch out to and it goes from one word to like, dozens and they just branch out.

Michael Simmons  30:52

And how do you think about the story around the world? I’d never if you said that. To me. I just think oh, the story is like, how somebody coined the word. But what is it that are that stretchy?

Jessica Hagy  31:05

I think like Oxford English Dictionary searches are always like, super cool. Like, how did that word come out? And like the first time somebody said it was in like, 1418 on accident and but really like, finding a way that that word relates to people right now. Or a way that that fits into their lives is one of those like, oh, wow, that’s hilarious. Huh?

Michael Simmons  31:30

So there’s almost like a, it’s almost like words have a personality that you’re getting to know like you like a person almost. You’re almost talking about a word like a person, I guess.

Jessica Hagy  31:39

Yeah. And I think as long as you’re sort of kind and generous with your, with what you’re doing, it keeps your work from getting to mean. But it does keep it keep it kind of, like if I’m in a really wholesome mood, that word is going to end up being like kind of a wholesome joke. But if I’m in kind of like a feisty mood, it’s going to be about like how dryers catch on fire.

Michael Simmons  31:59

Right, right. Yeah. Interesting. So your mood, your mood factors into it?

Jessica Hagy  32:04

Yeah. And sometimes I’ll just draw a set of things and I’ll look back and they’ll be like, I was just crabby. Like, I’m glad I didn’t post any of those, and then I’ll just come back and do

Michael Simmons  32:12

and how can a word that guy I wouldn’t normally think about a word as funny. Like, what? Like, when you hear the lamp? What makes that that’s funny to you.

Jessica Hagy  32:22

Um, I mean, belly button lint, lint everywhere. Like it goes in your dryer, it’s part of your clothes, like, are you made of lint? Is there skin in it? Like, oh, like it just gets really, really complicated? And all of a sudden, it’s like, Are there tardigrades crawling around? And like, Are there creatures in my house? And

Michael Simmons  32:39

Wow, that’s really fascinating. That’s like a depth of curiosity that I feel like I view myself as a curious person. And I’m just like, Okay, I’m not very curious when you when you say that, it kind of reminds me of it can be like a comedian, they’re incredibly brilliant. And they find these little situations or a little feelings that no one really notices, but they have their, you know, ear to the ground all the time for strange feelings or emotions or situations. And it seems like as a writer, you kind of have your feelers up, or words that you know, create a sensation, that’s a little that breaks away from the other noise of words in your life. That’s,

Jessica Hagy  33:24

that’s a good way to put it with the feelers out. Because if you’re always sort of just like, what, like, being open to like hearing that, and sort of like awkwardly pausing and being like, I’m ready now.

Michael Simmons  33:37

How do you think about if we wanted to, like when you were saying that as like, a part of me was like, I want to be able to think about all those things and feel those things with words. How would you recommend developing that taste? Or almost like a lens of seeing on the world? That’s very, it’s like a microscopic lens.

Jessica Hagy  33:55

Yeah, I think, um, one, just read whatever you want all the time. And it can be really goofy, silly stuff. And when you do find a word that when you don’t know or just sounds good to you, like, lately, there’s been a thing about how these all these terrible medical terms sound like really beautiful girls names like chlamydia. And that whole thing is like one of those. Oh, wow, that’s, that’s really cool. Like, how do we name things? And why don’t? Why don’t these names stick? And like what are hilarious names for people and putting, putting things like that together? Just like that were just sounds like what does that word sound like? And playing with things like that and letting yourself be super goofy about it?

Michael Simmons  34:41

That’s really funny. What is your I know you have children and how to are you constantly recognizing words are your husband and they’re like, did they get it? Are they in? Are they noticing things? Are you weird out to them?

Jessica Hagy  34:55

I think I’ve I’ve always been talking to my small child. As if he were like a large person, because if I can just speak like this constantly, the little baby would go to sleep. So he has since become very, he’s a very articulate little person. And he’s always asking what words mean. And he’s very desperate to know what the C word is right now. Yeah. And we’ve been giving him lots of different words that start with C, and he’s sort of sussing out that we’re lying to him. And he’s very like, like, very on the track of listening to how adults speak. And even on his his zoom yesterday, like I heard how his linguistics are echoed by our linguistics. And he said to his teacher, so I think what you’re trying to say, I’m just gonna recap your point. And I was like,

Michael Simmons  35:48

How old is he?

Jessica Hagy  35:49

He’s seven.

Michael Simmons  35:50

Is that? Uh, oh, my God. That’s hilarious.

Jessica Hagy  35:53

Yeah, like they all they’re all. They’re living in the same soup? We are.

Michael Simmons  35:58

This is this is jumping topics a little bit. But you know, in the course, we talk about the power of, well, just at 20s. First of all of that, yeah, writing is a huge thing, a lot of different skill sets. So trying to find things that are higher leverage. So number one is the value hooked of the title, the image that people see when the first that’s the first thing 80% of people are going to see that and not even read the article. So and then even within that, in the course, we talked about the idea of trademark words, ideas, so when you have an idea, coining of word.

Jessica Hagy  36:34

So this is a book from the 80s. Have you did you guys remember these?

Michael Simmons  36:41

No. Never seen that. Okay.

Jessica Hagy  36:43

It was like, it was on like a late night show. And they’d make up words like nurgle, a person who leaves his Christmas lights up all year. These are totally like your, like portmanteau. Build your own word and sort of own it. Like, yeah, I only I only just interjected that because it was on my desk.

Michael Simmons  37:05

Yeah. How do you think about coining words for yourself? Or just what’s the process there? You talked a little bit about how you feel like sometimes there’s a word that should exist. How do you think about it for and for it, maybe even stating in a way where other folks hear when they have knowledge, and they feel like a word should exist? How would you recommend pointing a word or thinking about it?

Jessica Hagy  37:27

So you talked about sort of counterintuitive ideas and how that sort of like that does get your brain like, Wait, what? And I think putting oxymorons together and then explaining them is super fun. Like, that’s always a, like the power of industrial laziness. Okay, like, let’s just go from there and like, take that as a phrase. And like riff on it long enough, then all of a sudden, like you’ve got a Malcolm Gladwell outline, right?

Michael Simmons  37:55

Can you give a like, how would you go from industrial laziness to Malcolm Gladwell outline?

Jessica Hagy  38:01

Yeah, so like, okay, industrial laziness is just like choosing days that you’re not going to do something. You’re going to recharge your brain. I’m just making I’m bullshitting right now. I’m just making this up. Yeah, you’re gonna recharge your brain and we’re gonna, like, put this out and everyone’s gonna work for four days a week instead of seven. And you know what? It’ll be full employment just because we all get lazy and creative at once.

Michael Simmons  38:20

Mm hmm.

Jessica Hagy  38:22

Now let’s sell his book like I. But yeah, like playing with playing with contrasting things will always supply some sort of argumentative fuel.

Michael Simmons  38:34

Perfect.

Outro  38:36

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