The Storylines module on Ubuntu Linux

I’ve recently started brainstorming for my Master’s thesis, and turns out I’m actually going to have to do some story writing and plot outlining for the project. Seeing as I know pretty much nothing about constructing a story or developing a plot, I started doing some research on software that might come in handy for such a project, and I found this: Writer’s Café.

From the website:

Writer’s Café is a set of power tools for all fiction writers, whether experienced or just starting out. The heart of Writer’s Café is StoryLines, a powerful but simple to use story development tool that dramatically accelerates the creation and structuring of your novel or screenplay.

I’ve actually been pretty impressed with the application. The Journal and Notebook modules are fairly simple, but the Scrapbook seems like it would really useful for any creative writing project, and I have to say I am very impressed with the Storylines component. The way it allows you to manipulate virtual notecards on multiple timelines is just plain cool, not mention really handy for organizing your non-linear thoughts into a more cohesive whole.

How do you organize your thoughts when it comes to writing long-form projects? Notecards, a personal wiki, mindmap? Let’s discuss at the forum.

I have spent a long time being more than a little envious of people who could add drawings to their notes. One of the masters of this craft, Mike Rohde, has coined the term “sketchnotes” to describe this art. The main source of this envy was that I assumed that some people were simply born to be able to think visually, had a natural artistic talent, or somehow were blessed with the right genetic combination to express this skill. In other words, I never thought I would be able to do so well even if I was to try to learn.

Furthermore, I had built up such high expectations for the quality of my work, my skill level, and how others would view it. I set a high enough barrier to entry to ensure that I never would. This did not stop me from always being on the search for ways to improve my notetaking. As a matter of fact, the initial seed idea for work.life.creativity was generated by my looking for a good forum to ask people such questions.

About a month ago, Mike Rohde announced his involvement with a company called VizThink and their Visual Note-taking 101 webinar. I was immediately interested and signed up as soon as I could. Boy am I glad I did. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. Here is what I learned:

• I learned that everyone can draw, myself included – “I’m not a visual person” is what I, and a lot of people say, when approached with such things. There is a great quote from the book The Back of The Napkin by Dan Roam. “If you were able to walk into this room without falling down…” you are enough of a visual person to get this stuff.
• I learned a lot about the false barriers we (perhaps intentionally) put up for ourselves. – By setting the bar so high (“I want to be able to draw just like Mike Rohde.”), I ensured I would never even try to start. The fact is, I’m not that good and it is just fine, because I like and understand it. The sketchnotes are for me to draw greater recall from the meeting or presentation. Who cares if they are any good.
• I learned about the freedom we give up as we grow older. – There was a great quote by Pablo Picasso early on in the webinar: “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” If you think back to your childhood, you drew stuff all the time. Crayons on coloring books way outside the lines. You didn’t care about how it looked, the selection of colors, or what other people thought. You just drew.

Most importantly, I learned the single most exiting thing I have in a long time: Look at the picture above. I can draw! I just had to learn how to give myself the permission to do so.

I learned an important lesson this past weekend: I can draw better than I thought I could. The key was having a clear picture in my mind of just what it was that I wanted to put on paper!

Duh, right?

I am always coming up with ideas for business but I tend to only express them in text, handwritten at that. But the recent Sketchnotes project has created an entirely new way for me to capture and express these ideas.

I suspect that part of it was being away from home, in familiar yet “new” surroundings, that encouraged me to see things in a slightly different light.

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” ~ Edward Debono

My daily patterns were certainly disrupted, from morning routines to diet. I feel like I have taken the first step up a ladder and not only is it not scary, but I can see better. And I am encouraged to take another step. So this post is dedicated to you,the amateur scrawlers of words and pictures. It is time to come out and be a real artist. Time to get out of your cozy nest and try something new.

Go outside and breathe the fresh air (it is Spring, you know).

Here is my suggestion to you: Make a list of the creative blocks that you believe are holding you back, just write them down on any old scrap of paper.
Then make a list of the creative things that you have always wanted to do, whatever they may be.

Now, look at the two lists. Is there anything on the ‘block’ list that is really holding you back?
Is there anything on the ‘creation’ list that does not have a valid, corresponding block?

Why not do that thing? Why not start doing it right now?

Share your ‘creation’ list in the forum, and let’s encourage each other to get started!

Mike Rohde made some sketchnotes at SXSW this year and they are fantastic.

I wanted to do something like this for SOBCon because I am a big notebook freak. But I can’t draw so well…

So I asked the rest of the attendees to help with this little project. This is what they came up with:

Share your thoughts in the forum.

photo by barbarina

I’ve been increasingly fascinated with the principles of minimalism and how I might apply them to various spheres of my life. The core of minimalism the rejection of anything you don’t need, and as I get older and busier, I’ve been confronted with the fact that clutter of any kind–physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental–generally goes a long way toward toward contributing to a diminished quality of life. Now, I’m no extremist–I’m not planning on throwing my TV out or burning all my family photos–but I am seriously re-considering how I approach gathering physical possessions, how I decide what information to consume, and many other elements of my lifestyle in light of a “do I really, really, really need this?” point-of-view.

Minimalism at work. Of course, everyone’s situation will be very different, but I’ve started applying minimal principles by evaluating my goals and leadership methods. I’ve begun the process of taking stock of what I really need to be accomplishing, and focusing more on those things than other projects that–if I let them–could demand my whole attention. I’ve consciously decided to lead my team in an effort to “unclutter” and focus ourselves on our most important objectives, and evaluate all of our peripheral projects in light of those goals. Less abstractly, I’ve also been seeking ways to automate and simplify my daily tasks. I’ve consolidated all my work-related notes into one notebook, and I’ve resolved to make my very cluttered office a usable space with absolutely nothing that I don’t use virtually every time I’m in it.

Minimalism in life. For me, this means looking at everything around me at home and asking, “Is it beautiful, meaningful, or extremely useful (meaning, do I use it at least once per week)?” If I can’t answer “yes” to any of those questions about something I own, I need to seriously think about getting rid of it. I’m also choosing simpler solutions for my productivity systems,  and cutting the fat from my daily activities. Reducing RSS feeds to only the most essential, deleting social network profiles I never frequent, and keeping my computer’s desktop clean are ways I apply minimalism in the digital realm. Recently, I’ve also been cultivating an appreciation for simple, fun activities that won’t break the bank or require me to take a week off work…stuff like taking leisurely walks with my wife at the park, enjoying the local library, and taking advantage of free, local concerts are just some examples.

Minimalism in creativity. No, I’m not trying to keep my creativity to a minimum , but as a creative person, I am considering reducing the amount of creative projects that I am working on at one time. At this point, I have so many projects in the works that some of my creative efforts seem more like chores than fun outlets. When I have too many projects in unfinished states, I feel like my mental RAM is getting full. At this point, I’d rather give my full attention to just a few things I can accomplish well in a timely manner, than going half-heartedly after a ton of projects that will suffer because I’m just not putting in the time to craft them excellently. Quality over quantity is my motto during this whole process.

What do you think? How do you apply the principles of minimalism to your work, life, creativity, and productivity? Let’s discuss.

I have a 24″ x 36″ whiteboard hanging on the wall in my office that I use for brainstorming ideas and capturing concepts.

2 x 2 Matrix

I love it for a variety of reasons, but primarily because it is so easy to edit. Try something, draw something, write something – if you don’t like it you can erase it and try again.

Also, because it is so big it is easy to photograph for capturing the things that do work, or the different “draft” versions of whatever you are working on. This particular picture is of a 2 x 2 Matrix describing work, expressed as  Effort vs Complexity (Click on the image to see the full-size).

I am working on a book with a slew of these matrices and I have found the whiteboard to be invaluable in capturing the drafts for the illustrations.

Another good use that I have found is in preparing drafts for slides in PowerPoint presentations, or for storyboarding these slides. For example (Please note – I am NOT an artist!):

Full storyboard

Then I can take a picture of the entire whiteboard and use my photo editor to break it up into individual “slides”.

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

Slide 4

Do you use a whiteboard? Care to share your pics or ideas? Join the discussion in the forum.

Quadracci Pavilion

While the Lovely Bride^TM and I were on walkabout this winter we visited some friends of mine in Milwaukee, WI and they took us on a tour of the Milwaukee Art Museum. While I am not exactly an “artsy” guy, I do like to look and share interpretations with people that know more than I do about it.

In the gift shop I picked up a book, “101 Things I Learned in Architecture School“. This little gem is chock full of very valuable advice for looking at problems and solutions – and not just in architecture. Many of the one-page (or one-sentence!) tips are quite philosophical and apply across a wide rnge of disciplines. I pull this volume out whenever I find that I am “stuck” and need some advice about looking at my situation from another direction.

One of my favorites is a quote from Louis Kahn,

“Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.”

I find it particularly useful when I can no longer see the forest for the trees. I simply replace “architecture” with the word or phrase that describes my problem and then brainstorm the word that would be used to replace “space“.

What sort of situations do you see where this technique could be useful? Let’s discuss some examples in the forum.

I gotta say, carving out time to pursue creative efforts is tough. Probably because art is not justifiable in terms of actual “usefulness,” unless you’re making something like furniture. I’d say art is one of the least pragmatic of disciplines simply because there’s not much perceived utility, whereas something like plumbing is seen as more useful. Which is understandable to a degree. A toilet that flushes itself every 5 minutes is more annoying than blank walls.

Art is really hard to quantify and qualify. (It’s really hard to price for this reason. It also explains why art is so expensive, since so much time goes into making it. Sadly, a lot of artists are making less than minimum wage on their work.) I can argue that creative endeavors go beyond ordinary utility or usefulness since they’re centered around a different kind of Value that is indeed difficult to quantify. You can’t deny the importance of art. Who would want to live in a world without music, art, or good food? It wouldn’t be worth much.

I think it’s this un-quantifiable-ness that makes it so hard to justify putting time aside to do creative work, just as it’s hard to sometimes justify taking time off. If you take a fishing trip, you’re not getting any work done, are you? But you come back refreshed, right? All too often, though, we wait until we’ve burned out before we do anything about it. That’s been my experience, at least.

So, setting time aside to work on my art is something I’ve personally struggled with for years. Since graduating from college in 2001 I’ve had difficulty setting time aside for doing art, although it’s the thing I want to do most. (Part of it is having a proper place to do it, but then again maybe I don’t want to do it badly enough?)

A few days ago, Nathan blogged about how he gets burned out he doesn’t take enough time away from “work.” While art isn’t necessarily a leisure activity, it’s just as necessary for people with that sort of drive. (Art is actually kind of anxiety-inducing, but it satisfies a sort of OCD desire to resolve an idea on canvas, in stone, or in music. That resolution in itself is very satisfying.)

I think the real solution is to set time aside for doing those creative things and sticking to it. I read a really great post recently that introduced me to this idea over at the Fine Art Views blog, where Jeffery Sparks talked about an artist who set aside time each evening to work on his art and get ready for his studio day, which was Saturday since he worked a day job during the week. I’ve attempted to do this, but I haven’t had any success due to all my current responsibilities at home. Then there are a number of distractions. When I was a bachelor, it was TV: reruns on Nick-at-Nite and Sci-Fi channel. Then as a newlywed it was just getting used to sharing a house with somebody and keeping things running, and now as a brand-new parent, it’s keeping the baby fed and the wife happy and the bills paid on time.

Like Nathan, I’m curious to know how you’ve conquered this, and if you’ve actually scheduled time to do your creative stuff. How did you make it work? Sound off in the forums.

WebWorkerDaily has 3 Handy Uses for Gmail’s Canned Responses Feature «:

Here are three ways to use Canned Responses that will benefit both the sender and the receiver:

Send out smart autoresponders. What I love about Gmail’s canned responses is that unlike most autoresponder features from other free webmail providers, you don’t have to send the same automated email to everyone who sends you anything. By using canned responses hand-in-hand with Gmail’s filters, you can trigger Gmail to send out a specific response based on an incoming email’s keywords, who the the sender is, and other criteria.

This feature comes in handy for me because I provide free advice via email for one of my nonprofit blogs. Since it’s a low priority project, it often takes me a few days before I can give a sensible response to the readers who want to consult with me.

The online form that readers use to contact me sends me an email with the subject “Contact Form Results FP”. Here’s how I was able to create a filtered autoresponder (feel free to adapt the instructions based on your needs):

Sending contracts and other paperwork. Online freelancers regularly send out contracts and other documents to their clients. Emails that have these documents as attachments often include at least a basic description of each attached file. You can use Canned Responses to handle this repetitive task for you so you don’t want to type these instructions over and over again, or even copy and paste it from a text file.

What creative things can you come up with for using these Canned Responses for your e-mail needs? Discuss in the forum.

J.J. Abrams loves boxes. As a kid he would take things apart, telephones, TVs, what have you. For a TED talk he gave a few years ago, he brought in a Kleenex box he had dismantled just to look at how it was constructed, the scoring, the printer registration, etc. In his talk he spoke about this magic mystery box he got from Lou Tannen’s magic shop when he was a kid. [Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:02. Transcript available here.] 30 years later, he still hasn’t opened it. That’s a lot of restraint for an eager, energetic guy who ripped apart a Kleenex box in a hotel room the night before his talk.

Personally, I’m not sure I would have had that much self-control with such a great magic box. I probably would’ve ripped the thing open as soon as I got home. Or sooner. But what’s important here is the idea of mystery, peeling away layers slowly until one arrives at the core of the thing they’re looking at. Or the core is never found. To use a worn-out cliche, I think many times with things in our lives the journey is far more important than the destination. Slowly unveiling mysteries and living off that suspense seems to be what has driven Abrams, informing his life and his work. Aren’t his shows Lost and Alias exactly that, all about mysterious, seemingly un-knowable things that are only revealed (or further obscured) bit by bit, layer by layer? Whether you like his work or not, it’s still compelling.

Do we have to have all the answers?

Sometimes you never get to the core, but I think that’s OK. Sometimes it’s better to not have the answer handed to you. What would be the fun in that? There’s no opportunity to explore for yourself, to use your imagination and be full of wonder about the possibilities that may exist. If we had all the answers, what would compel us to dream big? You can probably think of someone (perhaps yourself!) who failed to act because they didn’t bother to consider what possibilities existed.

My takeaway

For me the biggest takeaway from Abrams’ talk is this: how can I inject what I do with suspense and mystery? Abrams talks how films like Jaws and Alien build suspense and sometimes don’t even show what the big scary thing is. And sometimes the real gold is in the small, quiet moments between the big momentous ones.

That’s what that makes great movies, books, films, artworks compelling. Even when things seem plain as day, there’s always a little more to it than just that. What can you leave “unsaid” to be more compelling?

Comment here.