Last week, I wrote a blog about when writers walk, and mentioned that the payback has been huge. Well, that was speculative at best as I had only started, but could foresee the benefits immediately. Now that I am five days into it, I have proof.
The CS Lakin Challenge
As I have fallen in love with writing, I have dedicated far less time to exercise and it was catching up with me over the last year. I know how important exercise and a healthy lifestyle are for successful writing, but kept letting it slide and choosing to write instead.
I have a series of books by CS Lakin I have been meaning to read to improve my craft skills, and I started with her book Cranking it Out on how to become a super productive writer. I highly recommend the book, not only to writers, but to all creative types who prioritize mind over body! Lakin presents her ABCs – attitude, biology and choices – to help you become super productive.
In the first few chapters, CS Lakin puts forth a challenge asking if there was one thing you could change today to become more productive, then what would it be? I thought about that and thought it would be to find a way to progress my writing while exercising. Since my primary form of exercise is walking (due to 70% of the cartilage being removed from each knee), I thought about what I could do while walking. And since I am plotting my second and third books in a series while getting the first one FALSE TRUST ready for release, I decided to think about plotting while walking. And what a success it has been (see the next section for results)!
Why Voice Memos App?
I tried just remembering everything, but often forgot important thoughts. Then I tried Evernote and typing my thought so I would not forget them. But that was too much of a distraction from walking, putting me at risk of tripping or having to stop all together. So it was the Voice Memos app that won the day.
I use my iPhone and the Apple Voice Memos app. I can pull my phone from my pocket and record my thoughts without missing a step. A number of great ideas pop into my mind. I record them and then transcribe them into Scrivener, building out my outline when I return home. If I do not know where to place the ideas, then I place them in the Scrivener Scratchpad to be processed later. Most voice recordings are less than thirty seconds, so easy to transcribe.
For longer memos, I save the voice memos to Dropbox as an .m4a file, which is the Apple format for Voice Memos. Then I use one of the free convert programs on the web it to a .wav file and import it into Scrivener for reference and transcription. (My recommendation for file conversion is Convertio, but many exist.) So the process while hiking and back in the office is easy-peasy!
The Results
I have hiked three of the last four days. For my last to hikes, I recorded eight and then five voice memos. This has resulted in my finishing my overall story arc and define fifteen new chapters and the key bullets for each chapter. The benefits have been far better than I expected. Besides the obvious benefits of being able to plot while I walk, and the results mentioned just previously,
I have been able to achieve a few side benefits I was not expecting, including:
- I am more creative and able to generate break-through thoughts when freed from my computer.
- My daily work flow is more structured and stream-lined and productive. I hike in the morning generating plot ideas, then enter them into Scrivener and Plottr, and then draft my scenes. This workflow has worked well for me to become super-productive as CS Lakin mentions.
- My exercise level is increased as recording while hiking makes me use more oxygen! (Just listen to my voice memo below!)
Summary
I have found recording plot ideas while walking to be a real boost to my health and my writing productivity. There are still a lot of other ideas to implement, but as CS Lakin challenged me, I will now challenge you.
“What one thing could I change right now that would have the biggest impact on my productivity?”
And if you want to read her great book Cranking It Out to become super productive yourself, you can find the links for Amazon below. They are free to read for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
If you liked this post, then check out my other posts on my author journey and my book reviews for highly recommended reads on my Blog.
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