The author Geoff Dyer, who writes everything from fiction to criticism and essays on tennis, has a ritual he enacts before starting a new book. He pens a note to himself which reads, “Write a book that no one else could write“:

I think one of the features of nonfiction today is that, to a degree, a book could be written by anyone possessed of a certain level of knowledge. The area of expertise might change, but quite often, there’s nothing particularly distinct about the writing or the thought. With my books, for good or ill, they could only be written by me. And that’s what they have going for them. And I just need to remind myself of that, whenever I set off…

This does not mean never following form or genre. But if you do so, be idiosyncratic about it. Stand out.