🖊 November in NaNoWriMo Month
This week I started on the mammoth challenge of NaNoWriMo. For those that don’t know, every November, people challenge themselves to write 50,000 words, which in all honestly, is a novel. I have wanted to do it for years but never had the courage this year; I was persuaded by a friend to give it a go.
I am concentrating on writing my new dystopian novel. So far, I am bang on target and I have greatly enjoyed the challenge. However, I know it is only the first week, so I am not overly excited yet.Â
My basic motto for the month was to concentrate on the daily word count of 1700 and not to think of the whole 50,000. Small steps to one massive goal. This idea just flashed into my mind and then, as if by magic, I discovered where it originated.Â
Driving between appointments the week, I have been consuming Tiago Forte’s podcast called Building a Second Brain. So here is my summary of what you can take away from the podcast.
Ten Principles to Build a Second Brain
1. Borrowed Creativity - No idea is new. Everything that we write is a version of something else. For that reason, why create things from scratch when we can borrow creativity? This does not mean stealing the work of others but using their work as resources. For example, if you see a set out of a website you greatly admire, use it for your website, change the font and colour but use their inspiration. You might even choose to make your website a mix of all your favourites.Â
2. Have a Capture Habit -Â The brain is a beautiful complex organ capable of so much if we give it the space to do it. For this reason, do not make it remember all the facts and figures. Instead, use technology to store this information. Build a second brain. Leave your brain to do the hard work, the thinking and idea generation.Â
3. Idea Recycling - If you have written an email explaining a process to someone, saving this information can become the basis of an article on the same subject. I do something similar to this; I write an article on a crime, using the images I used in the article for my Instagram post. I then cut the article right down; this is the script for my YouTube and TikTok video.
4. Projects not Categories - When I heard this on my way in the car, it was like a light bulb going off. For years, I have been collecting facts and figures, but I could never work out how to store them. The answer is not to store them as categories but as projects, we are working on. For example, I now store my notes for the publications I write for.
5. Slow Burns -Â There are some projects that you can just let settle rather than working on continuously. Let the idea settle and collect some information as you go; when you have what you need, you can work on the project. For example, for my Broadmoor book, I am reading books and collecting snippets of information and then when I have enough writing the full version of the book will be easy.Â
6. Start with Abundance -Â Collect as much information as possible. Collect in abundance, so you have many options and information when you work on an idea.
7. Intermediate Packets - This is the concept I spoke about earlier. Break all tasks into small steps, which makes it easier to accomplish the big goals.Â
8. Know what you Know - Start projects only when you start will you know what you don’t know. Then you can learn what you need to plug the gaps in your information and skills.Â
9. Look After Your Future Self - Make it easy for your future self by saving information now. You may not know when you will need it, but save the information because your future self might need it.Â
10. Always Keep Ideas Moving - Don’t work on one project at a time, but have several. If you get stuck on one project, move on to another; you may well become unstuck on the first project. It is the same concept as when you can’t remember a person’s name and then when you are washing up the name jumps into your house.
If you would like me to go into more depth about any of these ten principles, please drop me a message and I will make it the subject of another email or maybe an article.
Until next week, take care all
SamÂ
Quote of the week
There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Books I’m reading
* Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
* Talking with Female Serial Killers
* The Republic - Plato
Articles this week
The Monster of Florence Who Targeted Couples Alone Making Love in Their Cars — www.murdermayhem.uk This is the story of one of the longest-running and most mysterious cases of crime in Italy.
The Institutional Racism That Killed Three Men at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital — www.murdermayhem.uk Michael Martin, Joseph Watts and Orville Blackwood lost their lives in similar circumstances.
Keeping a Stunning Commonplace Book as Your Second Brain for Your Life | by Sam H Arnold | Writing Academy | Oct, 2022 | Medium — medium.com Being a constant learner of new platforms and techniques, you would have thought I was all about technology. But you would be wrong. Instead, I keep a computer-based second brain and a paper-based…