I know, I know. Paperless society, e-everything. PDF, Word Doc, eMail. Yes, we’re all very electronic. I get it. But classic writers before our time didn’t have a computer or keyboard and they wrote volumes that people still drool over today! Handwritten stuff!
I still find beauty in owning a notebook where I can draw out ideas, write down notes, doodle and just scribble my name 100 times. There is something very intimate about putting pencil to paper. I do admit that my fingers don’t quite wrap around the pencil as comfortably as they used to and I admit that I’ve lost the skill of handwriting because I type all of the time. I don’t even know if handwriting is being taught in school anymore. But to me, writing or jotting down my product ideas on a pad of paper helps to become “one” with my creation!
Writing on paper is a great idea for “storyboarding” your ebook. Here’s an idea. Get a notebook, one that contains maybe 70 pages, nothing fancy (unless that motivates you). On the first page, write the title of your ebook, or just your working title for the moment. On the next page write out your table of contents. On the following pages write out your chapter and section titles, spaced out appropriately. Within each chapter, start writing out your major topics. You’re outlining your ebook!
Now, once your topics have been entered on the appropriate pages, start entering additional details you want to write about, not full sentences, unless you want to. In each section, find where an image or photo might be appropriate. Draw in the image next to the content.
Do you see what you will have here? A physical representation of your ebook. It will help you to visualize your final product as well as give you much guidance while writing it!
(Funny how when I Googled “notebook”, with the exception of the movie the Notebook, the first page of results were for laptops – amazing cultural shift I must say)
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Great post! I agree with you about paper…it’s so much more flexible than a computer. My problem becomes getting stuff from paper into the computer because stuff is so much easier to store on a computer…any ideas?
Oh…and what do you use to auto-follow people that comment? That’s the first time I’ve seen that feature and I think it’s cool.
Todd Temaat´s last blog ..Market Research Methods for Small Business
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In response to Todd’s comment:
Hi Todd,
Well, I’m glad you asked. There’s a product called the Livescribe Smartpen – and you can buy special notebooks to write in (single-lined 100 sheet notebooks that looks just like a regular notebook). You doodle on the paper and the pen uploads your doodles to your computer
I’ve used these before under a different manufacturer that requested I create a tutorial for it, but I can’t remember the name. I will look through my files. This is different than using tablet PC or notebook – I’ve never had success with that.
If you are referring to your last blog post showing, that’s a plugin called CommentLuv. You can find out more info about it at http://comluv.com/.
Thanks for visiting,
Gwen
[...] colored markers, index cards and notebooks. I’ve previously posted about why you should Doodle Your eBook – going back to the old school way of writing out your product. To me, that’s [...]
Thanks Gwen for such and amazing post. I will keep visiting your blog.