This is a really information packed post about the processes, tools, and philosophies that I’ve learned about writing over the last few weeks.  I’m sure they’ll help you whether you’re writing a play, a novel, or a blog post. Please share this post, as it will help a lot of people overcome writer’s block, focus, be productive, and much more.

I admit that I often don’t know what day of the week it is. Couchsurfing takes me around to different people in many places, and I keep growing because of it.  Day of the week… not important most of the time.  But now that I’m actually working with a goal (remember:  Goals are dreams with a deadline) of writing my book, I am racing the clock.

The first lesson is probably the most important, and that is

that asking too many questions is just my (I’d say “Your”- but I don’t want to speak for you) way of procrastinating some more.

“What do I want to write?”
“What do I want the outcome of having a book to be?”
“What style do I want to write in?”
“What format do I want my book to be?”
“What do I do with the book once I’ve written it?”

Sure… they’re decent questions, but as my friend  (and one of my couches!) Allison Nazarian told me (and she is a very highly paid professional writer), “DON’T JUDGE! JUST WRITE!” <— damn great advice, and yes, she wrote it as a text in all caps!

Seriously, you can edit later.  Just write.  What’s on your mind? What do you know about a topic? What do you remember? Just write!  Let your fingers do the walking as they say!

One of the tools that Allison told me about (that @thewaffle told her about) is OmmWriter! I tried this free app, and got a lot of really great writing done in an evening. Here’s their demo video:

As many people have mocked me for, you may have an easier time counting the grains of rice in a sack of rice than counting how many apps and browser tabs I have open at one time.  I also can’t stand the way MacOS handles the menu bar and full screen functionality, so this app is plain wonderful.

Since you know my love of puns, Plain Wonderful was definitely that! It’s very plain! It’s designed to just give you a blank screen that hides all menus (including its own), gives you zen (relaxing/new-age/peaceful– pick your adjective of choice) sounds.  Not only a multi-track music track with many choices (When I say multi-track, I mean that there are many elements to each track, and while they each loop, it is not like a song that repeats, but rather a song that never ends… and they give you multiple versions to choose from as well).

They also give you multiple choices of sounds that you want your keyboard to produce with each keystroke.  The menus are very simple.  Simplicity is the key here…. Come here to tune out the world, and just write.  It works well!  Thanks Allie for the wisdom, and the app.

I asked people what to write, and got many different replies…. both on the phone, and in comment form. Asking that question is a wonderful way to confuse oneself even more.

As Steff (who is an extremely talented writer that has found her voice) told me:

Screw what everyone thinks! It’s your story, you have to write it. Also, it doesn’t matter who thinks what.  Check out How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen – and write only a book proposal.

Basically, worry about what the publishers want… ’cause they’re the ones who publish, not my friends.  Even if I don’t use a publisher, and do it myself, at least having a proposal written, I’ll know what my book is about. I’ll have focus.  Great idea!

One of the things that people talk about in writing is “Finding your voice” and I’ve been told that since I started my blog a million years ago, I’ve definitely found my voice.  It takes 10,000 hours to get to mastery, and I’m certainly closer to that with all this blogging, and writing I’ve done for clients and guest posts.

I’ve recently studied a littlle bit of story structure…. I read a little bit by Gary Provost, but a lot of it really had to do with a conversation with my older brother, Barak.

Barak and I are polar opposites, and we don’t always see eye to eye.  However, he said do not mix genres (which Gary also says), and that he thinks I have a similar style to David Sedaris(click here to see his stuff on Amazon).

This was such a compliment!  I did not know it at the time, as I had to go to Audible, and get his Audio Book version of “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” — I loved it!  Lesson: Find writers you like, and then try to figure out why you like their work so much!

Ok… maybe I overdo things!  I got every audio book of David Sedaris’!  They are so enjoyable!  But I sat there for 3 days listening (and I’m not done yet), and trying to figure out why it’s so captivating.

Things I like about David Sedaris’ work:

1. He reads it himself!  (This has added to my goals for my book– I’d like to do live readings, like David does.)
2. In just one book of short stories he managed to make me feel as if I know him, his neurosis, his family, his lovers, why he is the way he is, the way he views the world.
3. His writing is funny, super-witty, and captivating.
4. Each “Chapter” is a full short story, where David captures the entire story… whether it is an hour, a day, or many decades…. he has a creative start, and a creative end– often I consider his endings to be punchlines (especially since he performs them, and has a dramatic pause, or a way of pronouncing it that really has the completing effect that a punchline has on a joke).

I’m sure I can keep going, but this post isn’t titled “David Sedaris is awesome!” It’s titled “Lessons in Unplugging and Writing”, so while David has been a large influence (I believe my writing style had already changed to encompass some of the things I like about David’s work, starting with my  awesome father’s day blog post), it’s not the only thing I’m writing about.

So, to summarize… if you have authors (or if you work with other media- photography, sculpting, painting, engineering, engineering, etc… then whomever you admire in that field), figure out who they are, and what you like about their work, and make a checklist that you can check your work against.

For me, these things include complete story / fleshed out characters / making sure that it’s not just a narration of what happened, but rather what happened as seen through my eyes / a strong ending.

I am taking Barak’s advice, and working on multiple short stories.  But that brings us to the next point:  Which stories to tell, and what to include in them?

Three and a half years of Couchsurfing with my pace and interests has led to so many adventures, I can not tell them all.  Initially, I thought I was going to just tell my story, kind of like Jack Kerouac’s On The Road – but there’s too much to list.  So, now rather than “I did this, then I did that, then I did this, then I did that” format, I’m limiting it to stories that are more about importance.

I use Mind Mapping to organize ideas often. Mind Mapping is a form of outlining that’s more visual and haphazard… the way the brain naturally works.

An outline is NOT how the brain works.  It’s too linear.  There are many free mind mapping tools out there, as well as many tutorials on how to mindmap.  Though, if you really want to get into it, you should check out Tony Buzan’s The Mind Map Book – as he basically invented Mind Mapping, and really covers it in wonderful detail.  He actually explains the benefits of Mind Mapping way better than I do in this simple post!

Seriously… Mind Mapping is very very powerful, and you can use it to retain information, study, make presentations, write, and much more!  Please take a little (or a lot of) time to learn about it.  It will improve your life!

My favorite application to use to Mind Map is called Personal Brain.  They have a fancy schmancy version, but I just use their free version.

Why do I like Personal Brain?  Because I’m a creative type, and it’s pretty! It moves!  It’s easy to use!  It’s more interesting to me than the fancy ones like MindJet Mindmanager (which is kind of an industry standard), but decide for yourself… they have a 30 day free trial.

That was a pretty long talk about Mind Mapping, when this time around, I didn’t really use it! I generally use it as my 1st step when coming up with a client’s marketing campaign, the things that a website should include, what keywords to do a pay per click campaign on, etc….

A program that I really enjoyed using to catalogue my adventures is called Scrivener.  I love this program for writing, and idea organization.

An old trick of writing is to forget the computer, and just use index cards.

• Write which ideas you want to include in your book- one per index card.
• Write a summary paragraph of each idea on the other side of each card (hint: if you can’t fit it on an index card, it’s too complicated!).
• Organize the cards in the order that makes the best sense.

Voila! You now have your book written! Well, a simple form of it. Your table of contents, and you can tell someone what each chapter or idea is about…. quickly.  Now just go back in and fill in the gaps.

Scrivener gives you a virtual index card / corkboard set!  But it does so much more! Here is an awesome video made by Ed Dale on how to use it:

The app has a 30 day trial, and is only $40.  I highly recommend it if you’re serious about writing.

To recap, now we know how to figure out what kind of writing we like, reverse engineer it into a checklist we can measure our writing against, extract our ideas for what we want to write about using mind mapping and index cards, write in a Zen place, just write — editing later – consider what publishers are interested in, or at least having something we can present about our upcoming book… which gives us focus. Don’t ask too many questions, or you’ll never get started.

That whole “DON’T JUDGE! JUST WRITE” was listened to… don’t think I blew it off to come up with my chapters / stories…. I went into Scrivener’s Corkboard, and pressed Command N (keyboard shortcut for new index card)– another great tip! Know your keyboard shortcuts! It will speed up your productivity by leaps and bounds!), and just write!  For me it was writing potential chapter names (here’s a few of mine):  Zappos, Austin, Know who you are, Ground Industries, How-To, It Begins, Introduction, Angela, In retrospect, Photography, Difficulties, Ditching Heavy Baggage.

I then double click on each, and write a description. Unlike the real index cards, I actually wrote more than a card can hold… don’t judge, just write!  I’ll shorten it later…

There were some that were so broad (such as the “Adventures” card) and I couldn’t write what they cover on a card.  Why’s this important?  I just click and drag on the index cards, as if they were in a pile, and I was really grabbing them and arranging them.  I arranged the ones that had good meat on them in the front of the pile, and the ones that are too vague are in the back of the pile.

The reason I mention everything in the order that I have said it, is because this stuff is cumulative!  I am now using my “Things I liked about Sedaris” to check my index cards against!

In my case that means:  Does each card have specific characters that can be fleshed out? Does it have a beginning and an end? Can I end it in a way that is meaningful, and is definitely an end? Is it something I care about, and can I explain why (in my earlier summary of David’s style, I called this telling the story through his eyes)?

I have a bunch of cards now, but not too many.  When I compare them like this, I can really get a feel for which ones make a good chapter/story that I can tell.  Scrivener is not only a corkboard application!  Don’t think for one second that it is!

I can now go to each “chapter” and start writing it in Scrivener… or, I can go into OmmWriter, and Write in the Zen with out other distractions.

Avoiding distractions is a bitch though! I came out to La Jolla, and had planned to unplug… i.e. avoid social media, phone, and e-mail.  Yeah right!  I’m too damn social!  What to do?

Despite having an assistant go through my e-mail, and send me what needs dealing with, I still keep getting stuck in Social Media.  “Just a quick check to see….”  “I need to get on Facebook and post my new blogpost ‘s link…. oh, new updates!  Oooh, check it out, Terra’s using my photo as her main pic!  Lisa changed her relationship status? About time! Oooh, someone commented on my photo”  – ARGGGGGGGH!  I’m fighting myself!

FREEDOM! That’s the solution!  Despite my isolated’ish location (a studio,  7 blocks from the beach) which is quiet and inspirational, I still keep getting distracted… so Freedom is the solution.  This application cuts off your Wi-Fi!

Yes, that’s right!  You tell it how many minutes you want to unplug for– from 15 minutes to 8 hours — and your Wi-Fi is off for that duration!  Now, they know how us clever people are… “I’ll just kill the process, and internet will come back, and then I can check my tweets!”

No… that won’t work! With Freedom, if you want to bring your Wi-Fi back, you have to reboot your computer… which is generally a hassle, as you have to save all your work (You should always be saving and backing up your work anyways!), close down all your apps, wait for the computer to shut down, and then wait for it to restard. *yawn* (although, oftentimes that will improve computer performance).

Basically, because you’re off the web, and rebooting is a pain in the ass, you just do the work you’re supposed to do!

I bought Freedom tonight. It’s a whopping $10!  For $10, I got $2,400 of productivity in 40 minutes!  Wow, was I focused!

This brings me to another point…. Coffee!

You don’t have to be on stimulants, but you should know a lot about yourself.  There are actually different types of people: Night Owls and Larks.  Check out this fascinating article by James Owen for National Georgraphic.

Basically, your body actually does function better in the day or night.  Regardless of how many times my older brother tells me to get a regular 8 hours of sleep, wake up in the morning, and get stuff done, it just doesn’t work that way for me.  I get distracted in the daytime, and I get tired.  For me, the day is good for communicating, exercising, exploring, and occasionally napping.

The night is when I kick-ass…. and yes, the occasional burst of caffeine helps, though since I’ve been on my cleanse, and started again with caffeine tonight, I feel like a Motley Crue member (you remember how they’d go into the studio with bins full of cocaine?)!  Ok… I’m not jittery or anything, but I am very focused.

Knowing about myself, I know that I’m a night owl, that I like caffeine, and because I’m ENTP on the Myers Briggs test(it’s free!), I get charged up by being around people.  I don’t even have to interact with them.  It just helps to people watch, or know others are around…. so, I went to a coffee shop, and I stay charged up.

I used Twitter and Facebook to find a coffee shop near me.  Another tool that would’ve been useful if Facebook/Twitter answers hadn’t started pouring in is Yelp.com, where people rate and review everything… especially restaurants.

I was initially recommended “The Living Room” in La Jolla, which was close enough for me to jog to- 1.4 miles each way.  Cool!  It was in La Jolla Cove, a pretty neat area.

I did not like The Living Room at all.  Their Baklava was delicious!  But they only had ONE outlet in the whole place!  Like, really!  They had unscrewed the outlets from their sockets, so there was only this one… near the door, and underneath their hanging merchandise.  Their logo is cool actually.

Their internet was broken. A stunning brunette with a beautiful face walked up to me and asked if I could get on the web.  “Nope.  I asked them an hour ago, they said their router broke this morning.”  “What? I just called before coming here, and they said it was fine!”  “Nope, sorry, don’t kill the messenger.  I’m in pain here too!”

Not only was The Living Room’s internet broken, but that one outlet which I was using had decided to stop working as well.  It was just a matter of time before my battery went to empty.

I then found a place called Lestat’s. This place is rad(yes, I did just say rad!)!  It has art, live music (though I didn’t catch a show), more outlets than I have the patience to count!  Wifi that works!

Lestats has a massive selection of  chairs, couches, poofy things, stools, and other seating aparatus of all shapes, sizes, and tables of all heights.  You can definitely find one that is comfortable for you to work on.  I’ve been here for hours now! Very productive, and very comfortable.  This may be my new home…. Did I mention that Lestats is open 24 hours a day, while The Living Room is only open until midnight.

What’s the point? Find a place where you can work and be productive.  It may be a clean office.  It may be a coffee shop.  It may be an eclectic cafe. My friend Jared had spent 2 months going from coffee house to coffee house until he found one that he considers “home”.  Don’t underestimate the importance of being comfortable.

Here’s a powerful combination for you- take your checklist, do the index card thing, mind-map to extract ideas, go to a place you’re happy/comfortable/energized by, disable your internet with Freedom, and just write away in your happy place in OmmWirter.

Just so you know, I am telling you EXACTLY the tools and processes that I use.  They are not the right or wrong way to do it, they are just how I do it…. and I hope they work for you too.

I mention this because there’s a zillion courses out there, and a zillion tools out there, on how to write….. and yet, so many people tell me “I want to write a book!”

I’m not really a published author.  I’m a problem solver and consultant who is working on writing his very first book.

I am highly resourceful, and I’m pretty adhd– I cover a lot more links on the web than you do   So, these are just the conculsions and tools that I’ve come up with… feel free to ask around, use your favorite search engine, read whatever books and articles you want, and come up with your own conclusions… or just try these ones on, and see how your productivity goes up.

I truly hope this helps you!  I’ve certainly had a lot of mental anguish trying to come up with the answers that I’ve included in this post.

If you have any questions I can further answer, leave a comment below, and I’ll make sure to get to it! If you have your own tools or techniques that you like… leave those in comments too!  I’m sure that will help some people. If you got anything out of it, share the link, so others can benefit too.

If you want to know more about my book, you can sign up on the right hand side of my blog under “Interested in my book?” – and of course you can sign up to keep up with my adventures, insights, and tips by using the Keep up with my adventures (rss) part!