I Made It: AJ Jacobs' creative process

Explore AJ Jacobs' creative process in releasing four New York Times bestsellers, which includes how he thinks up ideas, researches, and writes his real-life quests.

There's a healthy list of actors who practice staying as they are on- off-camera during filming.

Although it may seem a little too devoted to not clocking out, the hard work pays off -- in salary real, authentic, and the awards that are presented at shows for red carpets.

The efforts that is done by AJ Jacobs , an accomplished speaker, author, as well as editor at Esquire Magazine, isn't any different.

AJ does take his job -- and his rolehighly seriously.

Actually, for every one of his six novels, AJ assumed the role of his subject matter and engaged in a quest of his own while writing his books.

Being a character has been rewarded for AJ and his fans, too. The actor has been named a New York Times Best Seller more than four times to date.

We had the pleasure of having a chat with AJ who shared with us the process he used to come up with in writing his famous novels.

So, without further delay, let's dive in.

What happens when AJ thinks up book concepts

The first way AJ starts his brainstorming process is by pulling ideas and inspiration directly from his life experience.

It was the way he came up with the idea for his first book The Know-It-All: One Man's Profound Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World .

The concept came via his father, who has always was a reader and a seeker of knowledge. AJ's dad tried to read his way through the family's Encyclopedia collection, and he reached at the center of letter B. AJ decided to "finish the work he started and eliminate this stale air from our family's past."

And voila -- his first novel idea came to life the idea AJ is able to attribute to his father.

"I believe that it was the perfect example of using your family members and the things around you as inspiration," He explains. "I could never thought of that idea by myself . . . It was really something my dad would do."

Another method AJ thinks up new concepts (pun meant) is to come up with the most ideas possible and utilizing the method of elimination.

In the case of his first book, for instance, as He came up with the idea to write his next book the author sat down and brainstormed concepts that eventually were dismissed.

"I came up with tons of ideas for books, and I'm not even able to recall them all, yet none of them worked," he divulges. "Either I turned them down and my editor did or my wife put the kibosh on the idea because it was too difficult."

Even after he landed on the concept of his book, the Year of Biblical Living: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible in the most literal way possible , which was to live a life which practically followed the Bible for one year It was not easy for him to commit to the idea.

Due to the controversy of the issue, AJ had a difficult to decide whether to pursue the issue.

"It's extremely unpopular," he explains. "That was extremely stressful and I didn't know whether to do it or not."

AJ was thinking to himself "Do I really want to commit this crime? It could be frowned upon by both the sides. No one will be happy trying to mix religion and humor."

Although it wasn't a simple option, ultimately it was AJ's choice to be a hit with the audience.

But, he kind of was aware of that, since AJ is doing something every creative person should be doing frequently do.

He validates his book concept before going all-in. For AJ the way he validates his book concept is by talking to anyone he can about his latest book idea.

"One thing I do is inform everyone I can about this idea," he explains. "I examine their eyes and see if they light up . . . I can tell if they're asking further questions since sometimes they won't."

If their eyes don't "light up," AJ takes it as a cue not to not explore the idea of a book.

To keep his creativity authentic, AJ changes the subject topic from book to which permits him to follow a identical creative processes across different books.

"If you can take on projects that you can think of as completely distinct from the subject, that allows you a little more freedom to have the same process." AJ coaches.

Speaking of his repeatable process We'll take a closer look at the next step AJ is taking of doing study.

How AJ is able to conduct his book research

AJ conducts his book research through a complete immersion into the topic. Each book writing session is transformed into a different personal pursuit and adapts his lifestyle to concentrate on research and documenting his experiences for the book.

As an example, when he wrote The Year of Living Biblically, AJ did not break his pledge and decided to commit to a full year of following the Bible as closely as can be.

Then, to log the experiences he has had throughout his journey, AJ keeps two journals One for his own personal journal and the other for his project research -- a process that is still in use today.

"I continue to keep a record of the events in my life and also how it's affecting the study," he shares.

Although it might seem a bit overwhelming to assume all the roles during his book research, AJ does it for the right motive. The term he uses is "steelmanning," a way to show a different perspective that you do not agree with better than the other side could.

"I love the idea of steelmanning as I believe that it will make the world a better one," the man thinks. "That's the way we can progress."

Then "move forward" he does by making several bestsellers. We'll take a look at AJ's complete creative method.

The process of creating AJ's work

AJ loves the initial two elements of his creative process the most, which we've already covered -- brainstorming and research.

"Coming to the idea, that's one of my favourite things," he pronounces. "Brainstorming . . . 100 books in which 99 of them are bound be a disaster, however one of them hopefully will be a success."

"I enjoy researching topics," AJ continues as recounts his experiences researching his latest work Thank A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey . "Interviewing the creator of an espresso lid, and then going to Colombia, South America to visit the farmers. This was fantastic."

The final stage of the process of creation -- the actual writing process -which is the least preferred since it is a lonely process and also comes with a delayed audience reaction. "A large portion of it is simply . . . Being alone, and not receiving immediate feedback," AJ reflects.

"When I speak in public, it's a thing I enjoy . . . being able to see in people's eyes, or in their laughter that they are interested," the author says. "And with a book you've written that won't come out for a year, I find it very frustrating."

To add to that the stress Sometimes, the writing process is slowed down due to the nature of the subject such as with his book, "It's all Relative: A Journey Up and Down the Family Tree of the World .

"Partly the reason that this book took so long because it was about a campaign to establish a world family tree that could connect everyone on Earth in one big family tree." AJ explains. "So, you, me, Barack Obama, Nicolas Cage, everyone."

When it comes to creating his story, AJ starts writing with an overall idea of the direction he's heading However generally, his writing is largely made up.

"When I'm writing, have an outline that sort of vaguely says where I'm going to end up," he shares. "But the majority of what I write is improv. While I write, I take a few side trails, but I always try to find out exactly where I'm going."

When a writer presents the final project, there's an important procedure to be covered the editing.

Though it's an overwhelming task to take on however, the process of editing AJ's is easy. While editing, he solicits feedback from his peers and uses the median of their responses as signals for where to edit.

"I'll give it out to 10 of my friends. I'll ask them, "What parts do you find most interesting, and which areas do you think are the most boring?" AJ divulges. "I'll draw the mean of those, then cut out the boring parts, as well as make sure that I save the interesting parts."

Looks simple enough exactly like his view on luck and hard work.

How AJ considers hard work and the luck of the draw

When it comes to success, AJ says that "hard perseverance and hard work are necessary."

"You are not going to be successful without those," he warns. "But they are not sufficient."

AJ believes that you may also require luck in order in addition to your hard work, which is something he (luckily) had in his latest book came out.

"You also need luck, and I do believe that . . . the same week that my first bestseller hit the shelves it was possible that there were fifty books out, which were just as good and maybe even better than mine." He acknowledges.

"But I did get some breaks," AJ gives credit. "I was able to contact the person responsible for publicity at the editor. I knew the person who runs Good Morning America and I got on that. It seems like you should have both."

But that's not the only advice AJ offers the people of in the present. He imparts a few more advice to spread.

AJ's advice for fellow creators

AJ gives us the pearls of wisdom which have a theme nestled in these two words: Be creative.

Why? Some reasons. The first being, you get out of a mental rut.

"The more creative you can be, the better," AJ advises. "I think we have a tendency to do exactly the same thing, then that is why we create the . . . neural paths, neural ruts that get us thinking similar ways."

Which will give you more variety in life and ultimately bring you more joy.

"The more you can experiment -even if it's just an insignificant thing that you do in your life, like testing a new toothpaste, or working in differently -- the better it is to be creative and also for joy," AJ urges.

If AJ hadn't taken his own advice, he would not have written such amazing imaginative works and research -- in writing.

In my opinion, everyone can agree on, is a shame.