QUOTES: “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” —George Orwell [1]
“Success is a journey, not a destination.” – Ben Sweetland [2]
NOTES: This is a sample of the basic Anchor Post Template for the Reality Disciplines blog. It helps me to overcome writer’s block by bringing order to the prewriting stage of planning (what to write) and organizing (gathering the raw materials, such as a good quote).
The first quote functions as a writing prompt. Sometimes there is a second quote to stimulate the mind. A finished template, it seems to me, should not have more than three quotes. In this NOTES space, I discuss and dialogue with the initial quote. LIke preaching, this is a process of exegeting a quote.
The QUESTIONS space may list questions for me to answer as I am writing the piece. They prompt the subconscious mind. At the conclusion, these questions will be replaced with questions that will prompt discussion or journaling.
In the Parse stage of the process, a quote from Evernote is considered with regard to whether it is strong enough to “anchor” a post. If not, we practice “catch and release” by returning the Evernote to what I call the “Library Bin” or simply erasing it. When it’s time to add additional material in the revision phase, it will not be difficult to find again.
If the quote is strong enough to become the anchor for a post, we tag and bag: the Evernote is tagged in Evernote with A.PACT tags to identify it and bagged by placing it in a Notebook of Anchor posts that are ready to be filled in and become a posted draft. A.PACT tags note that it is an Anchor and the following are identified: Project, Author, Category destination, Topic. Tags in Evernote allow instant searching. WordPress posts can also have tags to identify them. This provides useful information that will not need to be looked up during the writing phase and become distracting. Plus, with the tagging, you can see other anchor posts from the same author, on the same topic, so perhaps there is a synergy to combine them.
Between this stage of parsing and the next one of writing the draft, the subconscious mind will fill in the structure that the template provides with information. What one needs to say will be easily accessible the next morning or later when it is time to write the first draft of this post. The anchor post to be turned into a draft the next day is selected, then reviewed before bedtime and put to bed to collect ideas overnight.
In this recipe for writing, first drafts are published on the blog and revised regularly. Time for revision is set aside each week, plus one day a month and an additional day each quarter. A post will be revised within a week, one day the following month, and one day the next three quarters. Revision expands and adds value. Comments by readers may result in new information added.
QUESTIONS for thinking it through:
What does this say?
What does this say that I should obey?
Who needs to hear this?
SOURCES:
[1] 72 of the Best Quotes About Writing, by Zachary Petit, June 22, 2012, at http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/72-of-the-best-quotes-about-writing
A footnote identifies the source of a quote and where it can be found. The link can be active so that clicking on it takes the reader to the source. In this footnote, the link is not clickable but can be copied and pasted into a browser to view.
[2] Quotes for Journal Writing, #13. (In this footnote the internet address of the quote is embedded in the title, and it is clickable.)