Elfing Will Save Your Writing

Elfing Will Save Your Writing

From The Create Unknown by Unknown Media & Studio71

June 12, 2026 · 1h 22m

About this episode

The episode discusses a unique writing technique called Elfing and explores the challenges of separating personal identity from creative work.

Thanks to MAINGEAR for speeding up everything for us. Check out the VYBE line that’s making up the core of Matt’s new studio -- and use code CREATE for a free additional year of warranty on desktops: https://maingear.com/ref/656/ Join Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thecreateunknown This week we kick things off with a shockingly sad discussion about Ray Liotta and the bizarre internet phenomenon of seemingly widespread celebrity death Mandela effects. That morphs into a conversation about fading news cycles, Scorsese movies, and Kevin's extremely unpopular opinion on The Wolf of Wall Street. After that, we dive into the REAL focus of the episode – a writing technique with a ridiculous name that might actually save your creative projects: Elfing. We trace the origins of the concept back through filmmaker Zach Krieger all the way to legendary Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder, whose seemingly crude writing philosophy could actually be the key to getting things DONE. From there, we zoom out to tackle a much bigger challenge in creative work: learning how to separate your identity from what you make. Why do so many people instinctively defend every sentence of an early draft…

People in this episode

Host: Kevin

Topics covered

  • writing techniques
  • celebrity death
  • creative identity
  • editing
  • feedback
  • artistic honesty

Keywords

  • Elfing
  • Ray Liotta
  • writing
  • creative projects
  • feedback
  • editing
  • artistic honesty

Sponsors

MAINGEAR

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Wolf of Wall Street

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