david sedaris's master class is interesting in that it starts and you have no idea what's going to happen and before long there's taxidermy owls and offhanded mentions he's cleaning up trash every day on the side of the highway.

here's some learnings from this wild ride:

1/ "you should never ask a question you hear in a hotel lobby or a book store. save the small talk.

it doesn’t have to be small talk - you can decide what it is.

as long as i’m having encounters with people, i want them to be meaningful."

2/ david recommends doing this by asking more nuanced questions, which will lead into richer stories. here's some examples:

3/ on writing autobiographically -

"your life is worth writing about. please don’t feel like you’re not special - you just haven’t found it…yet.

maybe no one’s recognized it yet.

and remember it’s not about what happened, it’s about how you write about it."

4/ "if you’re tuned in, life feels like a story. every now and then, your subject comes right to you and sits in your lap."

5/ on his daily routine - "i write 10-1:30 and then go pick garbage until 8 and then write and have dinner. i find it very important to write everyday. you have to do the work, people are going to think you’re a drag. but if it means that much to you, you’ll find time to do it."

6/ "when you’re in school, you learn topic sentences. but i hate openings like that.

i once started an essay with: 'Does there come a day in every man’s life when he looks around and says to himself, “I’ve got to weed out some of these owls”?' "

7/ "and yes, 'weeding out owls' is an absolutely ridiculous concept to insist i had in common with my readers.

but the ridiculousness and the assumption that it is a perfectly normal common ground made it that much funnier."

8/ "i think we all like to believe that we can hide our selves from whoever we choose.

and this is true for a lot of people…

but there are other people out there that are our type and that’s both terrifying and comforting. "