The book has some exercises in each chapter, which I chose not to care too much about. If I feel the need to enhance my writing later on, I will probably go back to the book directly to find all the instructions.

• The standard method taught in schools to write essays does not work in the real world.
• Reading is sequential access; writing is more random.

Writer’s block

• Being unhappy about the amount of ideas you have (both not enough and too many), feeling stuck, and turning to some distraction before coming back.

  • This sounds like procrastination.

• Addiction is created by some action that feels good in the short term and bad in the long term, prompting to redo the action.

• Coming back to the writing task after getting a distraction brings back the same negative feelings, prompting to resume procrastinating

  • Both writer’s block and procrastination are addictions?

• Weinberg suggests the Fieldstone method can break this cycle.

  • The method gives you something to always do when you feel stuck, to keep moving forward.

Fieldstone method

Fieldstone

A little bit of writing, an idea, a photo, a diagram, a quote, a reference that just sounds interesting.

Gathering stones

• The Energy Principle: Your emotional response should drive which fieldstones you pick.

  • It is okay to skip a portion of a book if you feel drained by it, to go gather fieldstones in another portion of the book.
  • What stones you collect will be naturally influenced by what general type of writing you are trying to do.

• Carry a notebook, a phone with a note taking app, a tape recorder, anything with you at all times to write down stones.

• Try not to have any qualms making notes in most situations, to avoid losing interesting stones.

Organizing stones

• It is okay to throw away stones.

• If a stone does not feel like it fits in the current writing but you do not want to throw away, keep it in a general pile of stones.

• Having the stones materialized as notecards that you can shuffle around can help with quickly reorganizing.

Writing journal

• Used in almost every writing exercise of the book.

• Should be a nice notebook and a nice writing instrument.

  • You are a special person, and your writing part is a special part of you, so you deserve this treat.

  • Craftspeople make sure to get good tools, so you should get good writing tools too.

• The exercise at the end of chapter 3 uses it to spot addiction cycles.

Quotes

Writing about a subject is one of the best ways to learn about it.

One way for smart people to be happy is to express themselves, to put out in the world the vast melange of thoughts and feelings whirling in their heads.

Never attempt to write what you don’t care about.

Every day is different; every idea is different; every mood is different; so why should every project be the same?

There are no bad ideas, only ideas that don’t fit the current work.