This book’s subtitle is: Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing

I’ve been using the book to boost my ‘morning pages’ routine.

Mark Levy calls this Secret # 4: Write the Way You Think.

In other words, don’t edit for any audience other than yourself. In fact, don’t even edit for yourself. Just let’er rip, working from the assumption that you can and will, even years later, understand what you’re saying to yourself, no matter how many disconnected thoughts carom across your paper or screen.

He dissected a five-year-old sample of his own private writing to illustrate ‘writing the way we think’. He decided it was a good example to share because:

1. He used kitchen language’, a term he borrowed from Ken Macrorie [  Link #1    Link #2  ]. Levy defines it as ‘your own slang’.
2. He ‘kept quiet about things that needed no explanation’. In other words, he skipped clarifications because he was only writing for himself.
3. He bounced from one topic to another, with no concern about logical connection between thoughts because he knows how he thinks.

My favorite line from this section:

My own excerpt:   Okay, morning pages, continued, doing the Accidental Genius Write the Way you think exercise. I’m not doing that yet as it still feels like I’m letting someone peek over my shoulder, but I’m getting there. I needed to turn the timer around as it was distracting…and so every day I need to choose myself and I should print out nuggest [the most convincing ones and post them up on the corkboard. Okay, that was good. I love this pen. I need fast moving pen tips that glide across the page…

From the Department of Neither Here Nor There:

Show me a TV ad for the SPCA, and you’ll get tears. Actually, I take that back. I wouldn’t stay in the room long enough for that to happen.

Item 1:

Meeting my work head-on…

I’ve listened to and followed Srini Rao for about six months now. I always glean plenty from his insightful Unmistakable Creative podcast–a productive collaboration between himself and his guests– and from his weekly newsletter. Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s topic: “The Power of One Focused Hour a Day”. I believe he originally wrote it in June of last year, which goes to show the power of ‘resharing’ valuable content on the Internet.

• With one focused hour a day you can write a book within a year, write 1000 words a day or finish a 45,000-word manuscript in 6 months.
• With one focused hour a day you can easily develop a daily writing habit, and even write something daily as Seth Godin does.

Note: He also suggests locking in your focused hour to your calendar rather than your digital or analog to-do list.

Item 2:

Use your fast-forward button liberally. You’ll get the gist of the program.

Item 4:

Like I needed to be reminded of this…

So, first of all, it’s not so much a Teachable course [though I hope visitors will learn from it].

It’s really more of a lab experience, even a tour of my process as I work on a first draft.

Sessions [not ‘lessons’] will consist of:

1. excerpts of my first draft
2. short screencasts and slide decks of my own editing/revising process
3. thoughts on my challenges
4. input from visitors to the course
5. demonstrations/discussions of a variety of different writing tools, such as Scrivener, IdeaFisher [this piece of software is the prime reason I’ve hung on to my 3-ton eMac running System 9], and concept mapping programs such as Inspiration and MindMeister.
6. short profiles of experienced, successful and generous writers and content creators who have helped nudge me forward.

So, basically, I have a lot to do.

If you’d like updates on the progress of the project, just fill in the contact form below. Use the comment box for questions and suggestions. Thanks very much!

I’ve listened to and followed Srini Rao for about six months now. I always glean plenty from his insightful Unmistakable Creative podcast–a productive collaboration between himself and his guests– and from his weekly newsletter. Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s topic: “The Power of One Focused Hour a Day”. I believe he originally wrote it in June of last year, which goes to show the power of ‘resharing’ valuable content on the Internet.

• With one focused hour a day you can write a book within a year, write 1000 words a day or finish a 45,000-word manuscript in 6 months.
• With one focused hour a day you can easily develop a daily writing habit, and even write something daily as Seth Godin does.

Note: He also suggests locking in your focused hour to your calendar rather than your digital or analog to-do list.

Very pleased, actually.

Today I used Microsoft Word and it did a pretty good job of proofreading and correcting its own translations.

Example…I said, “I also like the way it lets me stop in midsentence”. Its first translation included ‘get me stop in midsentence’ and it corrected itself to the desired phrasing.

What else did I like?

It’s very patient. It waits quietly while I gather my thoughts.

Suggestion: Experiment with dictation when you’re in brainstorming/prewriting/outlining mode. You’re not as locked into dialogue and its added punctuation requirements nor are you weighed down with the same level of perfectionism.

from Writing the Breakout Novel…

A good reminder to raise the stakes–private, public, or even better, both–for your main characters.

Example of raised private stakes: Investigator Clarice Starling of Silence of the Lambs [Jodie Foster in the movie] needs to erase the childhood memory of the slaughtering of the lambs.

More later.

A good reminder by Donald Maass, though.

I’m finding that if I’m working against a clock, it can make me productive, but it can also be a pain in the rear if I’m rushing around and feeling enslaved by the timer.

So, I tell myself, give it a rest. If you have to take some of that time to find the book you need or website, or whatever, then do it and reset [rather than ‘resent’] the timer.

In fact, I’m writing this during a seven minute stint that was dedicated to a story I’m working on. So there you go! Progress already!

Time to reset my Tomato One Timer.