The Notes2Post system helps you focus on a single theme each week; it provides the tools to develop new themes.
The more you use the system, the more “fluent” you become in creating themes for weekly writing projects.
But it’s more than that, it’s a system for writing Notes that then become stories. It saves time and boosts quality.
A case in point
Here’s how it played out with “Life from the Perspective of Other Species.”
I worked with three photos the week I wrote this story:
The “Ent” oak tree
The bird’s nest on top of the crosswalk sign
The garden
If you hang around trees enough, you start seeing humanoid features in them. This one seemed quite Tolkien. That was how it started.
I was sitting on a bench opposite the tree with my pup, Shadow, admiring the mighty Oak. My observations about the tree turned into something of a catalog poem that I dictated into my Notes App on my phone.
At the moment, I was unaware that these many observations would turn into a new theme.
I continued making audio notes all the way out of the park. They did not make it into the story that week.
The bird’s nest struck me the previous week and I posted a Note about it on Sunday. I ended up revising the text of the Note to make it a part of this series.
The story was becoming more about the juxtaposition of humans to nature. The contrast can appear more exaggerated in the city. But I crave nature, so perhaps it’s more obvious to me.
As I was planning the day’s Notes (and what this longer-form post would be). I remembered this image I had of the garden on the upper level of the park.
I’ve taken many photos of flowers framing or obscuring the buildings that they live beneath. I prefer to photograph something with contrast rather than the subjects on their own.
The Note about the garden came to me fairly fluidly. I wrote the first part of that sentence as pure description and sat with it for a short while before the concept of juxtaposition hit. And then I wrote the second part of it.
Snapshot of my process using the Notes2Post system
I took the bird’s nest photo on Sunday and posted a Note with it the same day. I didn’t think of it as being part of the weekly post (I hadn’t planned it yet.)
Although I had other photos of the “Ent” tree, I took a new one on Tuesday. That started me thinking “juxtaposition.”
I had several photos of the gardens from earlier this summer, but had not used this one yet. I also posted it on Tuesday.
I added the bird’s nest photo to the group on Tuesday as well.
I drafted the first version of this story in the morning, put it away for a couple of hours, then edited and revised it on Wednesday before publishing it.
All together, taking the new photos, drafting while walking, writing the notes, and compiling them (before and after editing and revising) probably took about 3 hours effort.
The Notes2Post course will teach you how to:
Create your own Memory Vault of images to use as the basis for your Notes. This helps you organize and plan more effectively.
Write 3 Notes on one related theme based on images you select from your Memory Vault. The photos make targeting a theme easier. Guiding questions and checklists help you craft your Notes and boost the quality of your work.
Compile and edit those Notes into one long-form essay for the week. Now that you have planned and organized more effectively, you have more time to be creative. You also have more of a basis for a quality essay.
The Notes2Post system I teach helps you focus on, plan, and organize your weekly writing schedule more effectively. I provide the tools to boost the quality of your writing.
Learn more about Notes2Post and my other offerings.
