This is my method for book reviews, based on the method I most often used for my dissertation. These days, I type out the quotes into a Scrivener page dedicated to notes, write around them, then structure a bit, write around that, etc. What I've come to see is that, in most cases, if I take my time with the note taking (i.e., typing out quotes, trying to remember why I found them interesting, seeing them in their place in the book again, reabsorbing that, noticing new things, etc.), the piece then mostly *structures itself.* So the hardest part of the essay is basically done by my subconscious in the background! Sometimes transition sentences start to nudge their way in too, it's a beautiful thing.
Given that my writing blocks are often about figuring out what comes next and what the structure will be, having the structure work itself out organically is an enormous benefit, and I'd argue makes the process more efficient.
But! This works for book reviews. Not always so useful for other kinds of nonfiction.
I'll add that in general there's a lot of value to retyping. I know writers who will retype entire drafts, and that's too much for me (and my hands, which have various ailments). But starting off a piece by handwriting, then typing up that draft and continuing it, is a really great way to get into a flow and maintain some of the magic even while moving to a more efficient technology.
One more thing, since I should be in bed but I'm stretching things out. I've used a free application for years to gather research notes, it's a Niklas Luhmann-style Zettelkasten made by Daniel Lüdecke. Very very bare bones but it's the place where I put all my ideas, notes, syllabi sketches, teaching plans, etc. (http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/) None of it is on the cloud. It's worked for me for over 15 years by now, and it's now at the point where I can use it the way Luhmann was said to use his, as an adjoint to thinking. Which for me practically means I can write a column fast even without an idea, as I dip into my Zettelkasten, follow the connections between notes, and tell a story about what I find. For a long time I didn't put my book review notes in there, mainly because it was during Covid and I was exhausted, but now I'm backing those up in there too so they will be keyworded and searchable.
Just wading into the Zettelkasten waters and so glad to hear it’s become that second brain they say will eventually develop. I think I need to be less perfectionistic about adding notes - if it’s a quote and a single line about why it resonated instead of 3 paragraphs of original thought, that’ll do. Also for other ppl exploring Zettelkasten, the book “How to take smart notes” by Sönke Ahrens lays out the principles really well
This is an insane thing to say, but I’ve been having research woes and reading this just reminded me to get a freaking notebook and write shit down like we did in college in the 90s. Thanks…
I’ve never been much of a highlighter except in law school, but I’ve been doing novel reading groups through the Catherine Project and have discovered how well the Kindle works for highlighting to discuss later. On my iPad I can open the highlights panel and the text side by side, and then scroll through and tap any highlight to go to it in the text, which is SO nice to have on hand when I’m sitting in group. You only get four colors, and I know people don’t always absorb ebooks the same way as hard copy, but it’s so useful for these discussion groups.
I'm interested and glad Sophia to hear that Kindle highlighting works for you, but I have to say speaking personally, I've found the shift to online reading has made my own reading and note-taking much poorer. I do it bc I travel a lot but I find that the very ease with which you can highlight stuff online short-circuits the hand-to-eye reinforcement process of handwriting or even typing out.
I was just thinking that maybe a combination would be great — highlight in a hard copy, then transfer your final highlights to the Kindle version for quicker access during a discussion. I just love being able to have all of them in one place, so I can scroll through and see of any of them spark something I can contribute to discussion as it unfolds. (I also feel less stress about highlighting because I can change the color, amount of text, or delete, but that’s just me.)
The exporting method is very much what I used 30 years ago when I was briefing cases for law school class. It really does help distill your own thoughts out of the text you are working with. (And apologies for what may seem like a soulless comparison.)
After taking computer notes my first three semesters in law school, for the last three I switched to handwritten, and not only did this greatly improve my ability to pay attention in class and absorb material, but typing up my notes later was a great way to solidify my understanding and review. Couldn't convince any classmates to do it though (this was 05-08, maybe people have gone back to handwritten notes now)
Does taking the minutes required to read your thinking slow me down? Indeed. It stops time altogether, lifts me somewhere new, thereby adding time, if what we mean by "time" is expansiveness, room, space, as your thinking opens mine. Thank you.
The method you describe makes me think of Joan Didion and the way she used the time before dinner to review her notes. I imagine her sitting down and doing some version of your exporting. There's value in spending time with our own notes, that's where OUR thinking happens, where our contributions might emerge or be found.
Indeed, but such a classic example of a writer able to do that because she was either at home with "help" to actually cook the dinner or in a grand hotel.
The mythology is that she loved to cook and was out of the room cooking dinner when her husband John had a sudden heart attack and died.
There were also many people who helped care for her daughter Quintana. She wrote 60 thank you notes for gifts received when they adopted Quintana as a newborn. That’s a lot of community.
Their finances swung wildly up and down -- she was my mother's age and social class. Those women cooked dinner, but also had housekeepers and nannies -- however, household management would very much have been her purview.
There's so much I like about this post, Brandon; I've been toying with different ways to manage projects, and criticism, most of which involve different kinds of post-its (I found these circular ones that I'm in love with) and the grid Muji books that I put them in; yes, I realize I could do to-do lists, and I do, but these feel better with respect to projects. Even though I'm not a visual person, for some reason, this sort of organization...makes me happy, if not more productive.
I don't write in books, though I tab them, but in my first read through, I take down a lot of quotes and page numbers, by hand and digitally if it's a pdf. If I'm really struck by an idea, I'll add that as well, but this part isn't for analyzing, it's just for the initial experience (and it's especially fantastic for poetry reviews/interviews...) Through this process, I start to see the repetitions: of language, of themes, and especially, what seems to catch my regard.
Second: I really appreciated what you said about slow vs. fast. For a variety of reasons, my thinking isn't as fast as it used to be and that's been an adjustment...your comments feel like a kind of permission, I suppose, to surrender to the fact that I'm reading and experiencing and writing differently than I used to. It's hard not to self-judge, but perhaps it's like needing to get somewhere, and there's a flight cancellation, so I'm taking a train. It won't be as fast or direct, but I'll still get there, differently, and hopefully it's still of value.
I don't think any of this will be of interest to you, but short answer: I loved this. Thank you.
- read book while lavishly putting sticky tabs in the margins
- go through book again stopping on pages with tabs and profiting from the vagueness of the tab placement to notice all sorts of other passages of interest on the page; and copying quotes, phrases or just theme highlights into a notebook
- intersperse that notetaking in the notebook with notes on whatever else I'm currently reading that chimes with the Villette ideas percolating.
- read bits of these notes before bed to let the themes percolate overnight.
(This is what it looks like when said notetaking/writing aren't being done in prime hours, due to day job. Was wholly different back when prime daytime hours were used.)
I had never thought about the notecard process as exporting, but I was actively taught this method in high school — by an octogenarian priest and poet english teacher who used it himself for both creative and academic work. we also learned to capture paraphrases and concepts with reference pages as well as any ideas sparked by the reading, which ultimately makes the notecards really helpful for organizing all those thoughts into a coherent outline.
i've stuck with it for twenty years at this point, including for my master's work, which was a -lot- of notecards... worth it
I have tried so many times to come up with organized systems - different notebooks for different subjects, Word docs, Scrivener, Notes folders - and to my dismay, for my ADHD and analog brain, the only thing that works is keeping a single notebook at a time and writing basically all my notes about everything I read/do/think in there. Which is both convenient and an organizational disaster.
Best Substack essay this week. I happen to be reading the new translation of Capital just now and I'm hearing ghostly shouts of "surplus value". Thanks for this, love the writing AND the process recommendation. I'm trying it out today (the export part).
This is my method for book reviews, based on the method I most often used for my dissertation. These days, I type out the quotes into a Scrivener page dedicated to notes, write around them, then structure a bit, write around that, etc. What I've come to see is that, in most cases, if I take my time with the note taking (i.e., typing out quotes, trying to remember why I found them interesting, seeing them in their place in the book again, reabsorbing that, noticing new things, etc.), the piece then mostly *structures itself.* So the hardest part of the essay is basically done by my subconscious in the background! Sometimes transition sentences start to nudge their way in too, it's a beautiful thing.
Given that my writing blocks are often about figuring out what comes next and what the structure will be, having the structure work itself out organically is an enormous benefit, and I'd argue makes the process more efficient.
But! This works for book reviews. Not always so useful for other kinds of nonfiction.
I'll add that in general there's a lot of value to retyping. I know writers who will retype entire drafts, and that's too much for me (and my hands, which have various ailments). But starting off a piece by handwriting, then typing up that draft and continuing it, is a really great way to get into a flow and maintain some of the magic even while moving to a more efficient technology.
One more thing, since I should be in bed but I'm stretching things out. I've used a free application for years to gather research notes, it's a Niklas Luhmann-style Zettelkasten made by Daniel Lüdecke. Very very bare bones but it's the place where I put all my ideas, notes, syllabi sketches, teaching plans, etc. (http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/) None of it is on the cloud. It's worked for me for over 15 years by now, and it's now at the point where I can use it the way Luhmann was said to use his, as an adjoint to thinking. Which for me practically means I can write a column fast even without an idea, as I dip into my Zettelkasten, follow the connections between notes, and tell a story about what I find. For a long time I didn't put my book review notes in there, mainly because it was during Covid and I was exhausted, but now I'm backing those up in there too so they will be keyworded and searchable.
Oh, Irina! This sounds great, and I was about to download it, but I wish I knew German!
There's a small Union Jack icon at the bottom of the page that will give you English versions of the website.
I'm looking at it now -- I've been using Capacities, but I'd like to get out of the cloud.
It's veeery bare bones but I like that! Not so much that can go wrong.
Many thanks to you and Charlotte.
Just wading into the Zettelkasten waters and so glad to hear it’s become that second brain they say will eventually develop. I think I need to be less perfectionistic about adding notes - if it’s a quote and a single line about why it resonated instead of 3 paragraphs of original thought, that’ll do. Also for other ppl exploring Zettelkasten, the book “How to take smart notes” by Sönke Ahrens lays out the principles really well
This is an insane thing to say, but I’ve been having research woes and reading this just reminded me to get a freaking notebook and write shit down like we did in college in the 90s. Thanks…
I hope it helps!! Happy researching!
I’ve never been much of a highlighter except in law school, but I’ve been doing novel reading groups through the Catherine Project and have discovered how well the Kindle works for highlighting to discuss later. On my iPad I can open the highlights panel and the text side by side, and then scroll through and tap any highlight to go to it in the text, which is SO nice to have on hand when I’m sitting in group. You only get four colors, and I know people don’t always absorb ebooks the same way as hard copy, but it’s so useful for these discussion groups.
I'm interested and glad Sophia to hear that Kindle highlighting works for you, but I have to say speaking personally, I've found the shift to online reading has made my own reading and note-taking much poorer. I do it bc I travel a lot but I find that the very ease with which you can highlight stuff online short-circuits the hand-to-eye reinforcement process of handwriting or even typing out.
I was just thinking that maybe a combination would be great — highlight in a hard copy, then transfer your final highlights to the Kindle version for quicker access during a discussion. I just love being able to have all of them in one place, so I can scroll through and see of any of them spark something I can contribute to discussion as it unfolds. (I also feel less stress about highlighting because I can change the color, amount of text, or delete, but that’s just me.)
I am stuck on the phrase “use your human mind” from your review of Kushner’s Creation Lake. What a review! I think the notes are working.
The exporting method is very much what I used 30 years ago when I was briefing cases for law school class. It really does help distill your own thoughts out of the text you are working with. (And apologies for what may seem like a soulless comparison.)
After taking computer notes my first three semesters in law school, for the last three I switched to handwritten, and not only did this greatly improve my ability to pay attention in class and absorb material, but typing up my notes later was a great way to solidify my understanding and review. Couldn't convince any classmates to do it though (this was 05-08, maybe people have gone back to handwritten notes now)
Yes exactly Sophia -- but I find this with novels too.
Does taking the minutes required to read your thinking slow me down? Indeed. It stops time altogether, lifts me somewhere new, thereby adding time, if what we mean by "time" is expansiveness, room, space, as your thinking opens mine. Thank you.
The method you describe makes me think of Joan Didion and the way she used the time before dinner to review her notes. I imagine her sitting down and doing some version of your exporting. There's value in spending time with our own notes, that's where OUR thinking happens, where our contributions might emerge or be found.
Indeed, but such a classic example of a writer able to do that because she was either at home with "help" to actually cook the dinner or in a grand hotel.
The mythology is that she loved to cook and was out of the room cooking dinner when her husband John had a sudden heart attack and died.
There were also many people who helped care for her daughter Quintana. She wrote 60 thank you notes for gifts received when they adopted Quintana as a newborn. That’s a lot of community.
Their finances swung wildly up and down -- she was my mother's age and social class. Those women cooked dinner, but also had housekeepers and nannies -- however, household management would very much have been her purview.
There's so much I like about this post, Brandon; I've been toying with different ways to manage projects, and criticism, most of which involve different kinds of post-its (I found these circular ones that I'm in love with) and the grid Muji books that I put them in; yes, I realize I could do to-do lists, and I do, but these feel better with respect to projects. Even though I'm not a visual person, for some reason, this sort of organization...makes me happy, if not more productive.
I don't write in books, though I tab them, but in my first read through, I take down a lot of quotes and page numbers, by hand and digitally if it's a pdf. If I'm really struck by an idea, I'll add that as well, but this part isn't for analyzing, it's just for the initial experience (and it's especially fantastic for poetry reviews/interviews...) Through this process, I start to see the repetitions: of language, of themes, and especially, what seems to catch my regard.
Second: I really appreciated what you said about slow vs. fast. For a variety of reasons, my thinking isn't as fast as it used to be and that's been an adjustment...your comments feel like a kind of permission, I suppose, to surrender to the fact that I'm reading and experiencing and writing differently than I used to. It's hard not to self-judge, but perhaps it's like needing to get somewhere, and there's a flight cancellation, so I'm taking a train. It won't be as fast or direct, but I'll still get there, differently, and hopefully it's still of value.
I don't think any of this will be of interest to you, but short answer: I loved this. Thank you.
Recent process preparing to write about Villette:
- read book while lavishly putting sticky tabs in the margins
- go through book again stopping on pages with tabs and profiting from the vagueness of the tab placement to notice all sorts of other passages of interest on the page; and copying quotes, phrases or just theme highlights into a notebook
- intersperse that notetaking in the notebook with notes on whatever else I'm currently reading that chimes with the Villette ideas percolating.
- read bits of these notes before bed to let the themes percolate overnight.
(This is what it looks like when said notetaking/writing aren't being done in prime hours, due to day job. Was wholly different back when prime daytime hours were used.)
I had never thought about the notecard process as exporting, but I was actively taught this method in high school — by an octogenarian priest and poet english teacher who used it himself for both creative and academic work. we also learned to capture paraphrases and concepts with reference pages as well as any ideas sparked by the reading, which ultimately makes the notecards really helpful for organizing all those thoughts into a coherent outline.
i've stuck with it for twenty years at this point, including for my master's work, which was a -lot- of notecards... worth it
I was taught in 6th grade how to take notecards, and used it all the way through my PhD.
omg, I love your mind, I LOVE your handwriting, I love your definition of "exporting." Lucky those students--and us. Thank you.
"All of this requires a bit more organization and thought than writing 'lol gay' in the margins." I feel seen. lol
This was very helpful. I actually stopped reading the post to go get my notebook and write down your process. Thank you!
transporting is a great re-enforcement/learning technique…nicely packaged…thx
I have tried so many times to come up with organized systems - different notebooks for different subjects, Word docs, Scrivener, Notes folders - and to my dismay, for my ADHD and analog brain, the only thing that works is keeping a single notebook at a time and writing basically all my notes about everything I read/do/think in there. Which is both convenient and an organizational disaster.
Best Substack essay this week. I happen to be reading the new translation of Capital just now and I'm hearing ghostly shouts of "surplus value". Thanks for this, love the writing AND the process recommendation. I'm trying it out today (the export part).
Yes. I agree…this was such a rich, and enriching, piece of writing to read.