[2] Always be researching

The bulk of the work is researching — collecting stories, anecdotes, and data to marshal your argument. The writing is stringing those pieces together. Ryan has used stuff he has found in in-flight magazines, discovered snippets on social media, even heard things mentioned on TV. As Shelby Foote put it in an interview with The Paris Review : “I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else.”