Tap into the “Hemingway effect” to finish what you start

To maintain momentum and flow, the great novelist Ernest Hemingway didn’t burn himself out — but learned when to put his work down.

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Excerpt to first link above: "In 1934, aspiring writer Arnold Samuelson set out to meet his literary hero, Ernest Hemingway. His plan was, to put it mildly, ramshackle. Without so much as an introductory letter, the young man hitch-hiked his way from Minnesota to Key West hoping that the famed author would spare him a moment to discuss the writing craft.

“It seemed a damn fool thing to do,” Samuelson said, “but a twenty-two-year-old tramp during the Great Depression didn’t have to have much reason for what he did.”

He got more than a moment. Samuelson stayed with Hemingway for a year, and during that time, the author made him a spur-of-the-moment protégé, teaching Samuelson all about writing and the good life. Samuelson’s record of the experience was discovered by his daughter after his death, and she had it published as a book, With Hemingway: A Year in Key West and Cuba (1984).

In addition to completing Samuelson’s education with a list of must-read books — a collection worthy of anyone’s summer — Hemingway shared his strategies for finishing work and getting the words right. One of those strategies has since become known as the “Hemingway effect.”

In Hemingway’s words: “The main thing is to know when to stop. […] When you’re still going good and you come to an interesting place and you know what’s going to happen next, that’s the time to stop. Then leave it alone and don’t think about it; let your subconscious mind do the work.”'