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" The job for cable is to give the news and then also give the 'so what.' "
Douglas Brunt
Give
Job
Then
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" Dad was a retired hedge fund manager who made enough millions to retire and focus on my game. Before that, he was on the 1984 U.S. Olympic swimming team. No medals. He was accustomed to winning at everything, but no medals in 1984. "
Douglas Brunt
Focus
Winning
Team
" From a distance, the American political system is a remarkable success. We have accomplished the peaceful transfer of power for more than two hundred years, and that's unmatched by any civilization in human history. Up close, our political system still has all the ugliness and bad actors that you might suspect. "
Douglas Brunt
Power
Success
You
" D.C. is a small town with some big-town features. "
Douglas Brunt
Small
Features
Town
" Adverbs lead to overwriting. Try taking them out and reading your prose again to see how it sounds. Simple and less words are more powerful. "
Douglas Brunt
Words
Try
Simple
" The main influence on voters should be a series of robust debates among the candidates. It's a free country, so this is a tough problem to solve, but I'd love to see an election season with zero political ads, and all voters had to decide based on watching four national debates over the two months leading to election day. "
Douglas Brunt
Election
Political
Love
" I've thought about bringing my children to retrace my own steps of the morning of September 11, 2001, but they're too young for that. Maybe when they're twenty. Maybe by then, even though it's been only a short subway ride away for years now, I'll have the nerve to see the 9-11 memorial for the first time. "
Douglas Brunt
Ride
Short
Children
" In September of 2001, I was living in the West Village of Manhattan, working from my home for a tech start-up. "
Douglas Brunt
Home
September
Village
" Wall Street has played a role in everyone's life, and it has been vilified by everyone, but I think that the average trader didn't have a sense of what was coming. The culture is so vacuous, it's possible to come to it straight out of college and never have a real adult life, even if you have the wife and kids. "
Douglas Brunt
Culture
Life
Wife
" I do like Pat Conroy, and 'The Great Santini' is an iconic book. "
Douglas Brunt
Book
Great
Iconic
" The important thing is to write when your brain is at its best. Work edits or do outside reading with the rest of the day. "
Douglas Brunt
Rest
Best
Brain
" At six years old, our son had friends who played soccer from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M., Monday through Friday. A six-year-old practicing as much as a Division I athlete. "
Douglas Brunt
Monday
Son
Soccer
" I turned six in 1977. Youth athletics then was nothing like this, and I wondered how things changed so much. I started looking at our societal emphasis on sports, using the most tangible metric by which we measure emphasis: money. "
Douglas Brunt
Measure
Sports
Youth
" Don't copy another writer's style, because that is not authentic, and that's how it will sound. You develop your style over your whole life and through countless influences. Don't impose something artificial. "
Douglas Brunt
Sound
Style
Will
" Three hours of creating is taxing on any brain, and you should stop there. Some days, you may stop without any words at all. It's much easier to write new stuff the next day than to go through painful deletions of a day's worth of crap you already wrote. "
Douglas Brunt
You
Brain
Day
" Spend more time working before you write page one. Then, the story - at least parts of it - will feel as though it is writing itself. "
Douglas Brunt
Time
Writing
You
" Your spouse, a sibling, a friend need to read your drafts. They have to be people unafraid to tell you what sucks. For early feedback, that's more important than professional editorial skill. Most people know what sucks. "
Douglas Brunt
Professional
People
Friend
" 'The Means' is about power. I have access to political insiders who helped me write a portrait of the real day-to-day in politics, which turned out to be crazier than Wall Street. "
Douglas Brunt
Portrait
Power
Politics
" In my first book, 'Ghosts Of Manhattan,' the setting was Wall Street, and I explored the predictable nature of a bond trader inside the compensation scheme at Bear Stearns and the government regulations of Wall Street. That was about money. "
Douglas Brunt
Money
Bond
Book
" I'm really troubled by the prevalence of single-sport specializations. I want my kids to do as many things for as long as they can. Specialization is a natural thing that should come later - it shouldn't come for 8-year-olds. "
Douglas Brunt
Want
Natural
Things
" A theme I'm obsessed with is the tension between human nature and the frameworks designed to curb the worst and promote the best of it. "
Douglas Brunt
Worst
Nature
Human
" I prefer a change of surroundings anyway, and I like to be around some energy and white noise, so I usually go to a Barnes & Noble cafe or to the library on 5th and 42nd. In the afternoons, I do research, reading, editing, and play with the kids. "
Douglas Brunt
Play
Energy
Reading
" Don't write more than 3 hours at a time. I write three hours in the morning, 9 A.M. - 12 P.M. Other people are best late at night. "
Douglas Brunt
People
Best
Late
" If you look at top players - Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi - so many had a parent who was domineering to the point where you really had to question his sanity. It was nuts. "
Douglas Brunt
Parent
You
Top
" It's common knowledge that professional athletes earn extraordinary incomes. What is less known or understood is how the advent of these riches has seeped into the conscious and unconscious ways in which our society now parents children. "
Douglas Brunt
Children
Society
Knowledge
" Washington isn't utterly dysfunctional. "
Douglas Brunt
Utterly
Dysfunctional
Washington
" Style matters, but the real force of writing is ideas, not style. "
Douglas Brunt
Style
Real
Matters
" When the kids are down, I have a drink and watch 'The Kelly File.' "
Douglas Brunt
Down
Watch
Kids
" On Wall Street, every story becomes known so quickly. They are all so connected that everything disseminates there faster than anywhere. "
Douglas Brunt
Everything
Story
Street
" I've been pretty damn happy since 2001. More apparent danger than real danger for me, and even the apparent danger hasn't kept me from feeling warm, safe and loved. I've found love and a partner to raise three children that I'm glad to have brought into this beautiful world. "
Douglas Brunt
Happy
Children
Beautiful
" Dad met Mom in 1983 during the lead-up to the 1984 games. She was an Olympic downhill skier. In those days, the winter and summer games were held in different cities but in the same year, so there was more intermingling of winter and summer athletes at social functions. "
Douglas Brunt
Year
Summer
Winter