Accidental Genius

Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight and Content

By: Mark Levy

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

When it comes to creating ideas, we hold ourselves back. That's because inside each of us is an internal editor whose job is to forever polish our thoughts, so we sound smart and in control, and so that we fit into society. But what happens when we encounter problems for which such conventional thinking fails us? How can we get unstuck?

For Mark Levy, the answer is freewriting, a technique he's used for years to solve all types of business problems and generate ideas for books, articles, and blog posts.

Freewriting is deceptively simple: Start writing as fast as you can, for as long as you can, about a subject you care deeply about, while ignoring the standard rules of grammar and spelling. Your internal editor won't be able to keep up with your output, and will be temporarily shunted into the background. You'll now be able to think more honestly and resourcefully than before, and will generate breakthrough ideas and solutions that you couldn't have created any other way.

Levy shares six freewriting secrets designed to knock out your editor and let your genius run free. He also includes 15 problem-solving and creativity-stimulating principles you can use if you need more firepower - seven of which are new to this edition - and stories of problems he and others have solved through freewriting.

Also new to this edition: an extensive section on how to refine your freewriting into something you can share with the world. Although Levy originally taught freewriting as a private brainstorming technique, over the years he and his clients have found that, with some tweaking, it's a great way to generate content for books, articles, and other thought-leadership pieces.

©2010 Mark Andrew Levy (P)2010 Audible, Inc

Critic reviews

"I’ve been a fanboy of Accidental Genius and the genius of Mark Levy for five years now, and I couldn’t work without these ideas." (David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR)

Fantastic absolutely a must.

This book I really amazing it just mAkes you wanna write. My second no third listen now love it

Loaded!!

Worth listening to over and over again. Like with most good book, one time through is a teaser. Anybody who writes can benefit from this book.

Great Ideas

I loved this book. It has a great many ideas that will help in all walks of life. It helps you think about things and organize your thoughts and ideas.
It is great for writers, poets, song writers etc. but just as useful for inventors, business owners and people who need to figure things out or make plans.

Very Classy Book, Great Ideas, Easy to Implement

Wow! Really, wow! What a pleasant surprise. Don't be fooled by this book's average looking cover.

Firstly, it does exactly what it says on the tin- It tells you where you can find your best ideas and how to capture and build on them.

But it's much more than that. It's also about finding 'flow' , about silencing your inner critic and other demons for long enough to let your higher self shine It's exciting, motivating and offers some of the very best techniques for overcoming writer's block I've ever come heard.

If you need some inspiration and motivation to tackle major problems in your life, whether work related or life issues, I strongly recommend you have a listen. You don't need to be a writer to use the techniques. But if you are a writer like me, then you'll find them doubly valuable.

As you listen you'll find yourself itching to try stuff out. It really is that good.

I've ordered a hard copy to serve as a permanent writing companion. I know it's going to be a book I keep with me for a long time.

It's broken down into lots of short chapters. Each one describes a technique and has various exercises to follow. You'll need to stop the program to do the exercises. If you listen straight through without stopping you must then go back to listen again, otherwise you'll miss out.

As you listen you won't doubt the power of the techniques covered. He's a really good writer and he puts it all down to the techniques he's describing.

Also, it's been very well recorded and read. The narrator has done a great job. His voice is easy on the ear, well suited to the material and he keeps you listening.

Do yourself a favour - get this book!

I would buy it again!

Great book that as Mark Levy says, will cause a chain reaction of ideas in your mind. After reading this book my mind became like a volcano, sometimes I feel like I am going to have a brain seizure for having so many ideas when writing. It helped me get rid of a 7 year writer's block, now I am writing 2 blogs and ready to write a book!

Thought provoking and informative..

As a professional writer for four decades in many, many genres I believe there's always something new one can learn. Listening to this while doing "grunt" work around the ranch made the time pass quickly and made me year to buy a paper copy in order to make notes and/or do the short exercises...very helpful and entertaining.
martha humphreys

Good technique to practice writing

the author explains free writing and then goes over many examples of how to use it. probably could have been shorter but good book to have in your writing tool box.

Useful book, excellent narration

This was a really good book and I have now listened to it three times and intend to listen to it again in a few months to refresh the concepts.

Bronson Pinchot's reading is *perfect* so I disagree strongly with the previous reviewer who said the narration was off and should have been done by someone with more "experience". First of all, Pinchot has 81 narration credits to his name so he's a total pro. Also, the cadence and tone was right on throughout. I checked the list of books he narrated to see if anything else caught my fancy, he was that good. To each his own.

The book itself is excellent. Levy describes the use of "freewriting" (where you write as fast as you can for so many minutes without stopping and without editing or correcting yourself) for idea generation. I understand freewriting is an old technique, and Levy cites Peter Elbow's "Writing with Power" as a source. Being my first real intro to the idea I learned a lot and have been using freewriting as Levy describes and frankly I think it's a life-changer though perhaps that's overstating just slightly. It is extremely useful and he supplements the basic freewriting idea with a number of concepts for idea generation and using your freewriting for more finished and public work.

If I were to criticize something in the book I'd just say a few of the exercises are of questionable value, but there's plenty here to hold your interest.

Inspirational, however...

The narration really got on my nerves. I can't put my finger on exactly why it bothered me, other than I found myself scowling every time Bronson Pinchot put the emphasis on the wrong part of a sentence. It would have been much more enjoyable with a more professional/experienced narrator. That aside, the book itself is slanted toward business, but the ideas are inspirational from a more general viewpoint as well.

This book can induce depression

I find myself a little bit depressed after reading this book because it makes me feel like I am wasting my life instead of investing my brain energy into the vital work that the world needs me to do.

It is only useful if you have things that you are trying to wrap your head around.

I have it scheduled for re-reading every few months.