Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo [affiliate link] and other novels, shared this picture of his writing shed in a recent issue of his Substack newsletter.

You don’t need a special place to write. But I dream of having a special place to write. I’m drawn to the myth.

The game we’re playing is one that gives power to writers and creators. It’s a game that ensures writers can maintain their independence without most of the drudgery that comes with running their own media operation, and without having to cede control to a gatekeeper. We build tools that give writers and creators the full powers of the internet so their work can have maximum impact, reach, and revenue. We are helping to unlock the potential of existing writers to get greater value for and from their work, and so that new types of writers can enter the media economy and thrive. That’s the movement Substack is helping to drive. We don’t believe it’s going to slow down any time soon. On the contrary, we expect it to accelerate and expand.

Hamish McKenize, “Please Stop Calling it the ‘Newsletter Economy'”

The headline tells you I suffer the occasional spell of long-windedness. If you read my newsletter, you can too! Hopefully, your suffering will be minimal compared to mine.

I write an occasional newsletter that you can preview and then subscribe to (please!) on Substack. It won’t hurt you to sign on for the free edition. Who knows? It could even help you. Maybe you’ll learn a joke, crack a smile, gain an insight, discover a book, or nauseously endure one of my bad movie takes. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I’ve been writing on Substack since spring 2020, having made the switch from another newsletter service early in the pandemic. I had the time. I didn’t move in order to launch a paid tier, as other writers were doing to connect directly with their readership and make a little money on the side.

I moved over mainly for the simple interface, something easy to use for a caveman like me, and the desire to send friends, family, and acquaintances an attractive looking email. I also felt Substack had a broader range of viewpoint tolerance and diversity. I support open inquiry. As someone representing a religious tradition that has historically valued freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of association, I’d like to be on platform that supports the open exchange of ideas. I know that means “bad” ideas will run wild, too. May the good ideas prevail! From what I could tell, Substack is the kind of place where arguments can be made by writers, at least for now.

If you aren’t already on board, go sign on for my newsletter. It’s Friday night. Make it a wild and memorable one.

Everybody writes. Especially in academia. Students write and professors write. And nonfiction writers, who are the third group of people this book is aiming to help, obviously write as well. And writing doesn’t necessarily mean papers, articles, or books, but everyday, basic writing. We write when we need to remember something, be it an idea, a quote or the outcome of a study. We write when we want to organize our thoughts and when we want to exchange ideas with others. Students write when they take an exam, but the the first thing they do to prepare even for an oral examination is to grab pen and paper. We write down not only those things we fear we won’t remember otherwise, but also the very things we try to memorise [sic]. Every intellectual endeavor starts with a note.

Sönke Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning, and Thinking — for Students, Academics, and Nonfiction Book Writers

I’m working to improve my methods for capturing, accessing, and utilizing information, and as a result I’m trying to get better at taking notes.

For years I’ve kept a quotation or commonplace book, where I sit down and copy out pithy sayings, phrases, proverbs, poems, and the like. When I’m looking for ideas, or I’m searching for insight, I’ll flip through and see what I’ve copied there. I also use Evernote and Google Drive in addition to pen and paper. I carry a small notebook with me. Lately, a Sharpie and Post-it notes have been my way of capturing ideas, putting them in front of me, and processing them one by one. I’ve also taken to Trello as a board to capture big ideas, and then pin accompanying images, links, etc. for later consideration and treatment. I use my blog as an archive for my thoughts, a place to put ideas I gravitate toward, write about them briefly, and then tag, categorize, and file for later exploration.

But I don’t have a great system. So I’m reading Ahrens’s book, cited above in order to learn how to do it better. As someone who writes about religion, spirituality, and faith, having a system that works is necessary. One of my seminary professors encouraged us to have a system, a way to capture, file, access, and utilize information. He shared his system. But he told us to glean what we could from the way he did it, and make it our own.

How do you take notes? How do you file and organize those notes, and then access them for later use? What works well, and what do you have trouble with?

Writing crystalizes and captures thought. Filing and organizing those thoughts makes them accessible, and when your thoughts are accessible you can put them to use. Some of us are great at writing things down, but terrible at filing and organizing and creating smooth channels for retrieval of information.

It’s one thing to make a note, and it is another to make a note that you can later use. Every intellectual endeavor may start with a note, but deep intellectual work requires systematization, organization, accessibility, and retrieval.

I’ve started creating project specific notebooks, or notebooks designated for particular areas of my life, such as a personal journal and a work journal. That’s one way I’ve tried to capture information in one place in order to keep it contained and accessible.

How do you do it?

A quotation from Thomas Mann, via Alan Jacob’s eNewsletter:

I do not think that it is the essence and duty of the writer to join “with great fanfare” the main direction the culture is taking at the moment. I do not think and cannot from my very nature think that it is natural and necessary for the writer to support a development in a completely positive way by direct, credulous-enthusiastic advocacy — as a solid knight of the times, without scruple and doubt, with straightforward intentions and an unbroken determination and spirit for it, his god. On the contrary, authorship itself has always seemed to me to be a witness to and an expression of ambivalence, of here and there, of yes and no, of two souls in one breast, of an annoying richness in inner conflicts, antitheses, and contradictions.

As a writer, this strikes me as absolutely correct.

As a churchman, with firm convictions on particular questions, this is a personal challenge.

Writers can be ideologues, and many certainly are. But in my experience weighing and evaluating arguments, there has been that pull of “yes and no, of two souls in one breast,” etc.

Those who “support a development in a completely positive way by direct, credulous-enthusiastic advocacy” may not be thinking at all, or at least not thinking very clearly. They may be caught up in the spirit of an age, possessed, and in need of exorcism.

Good writing makes plain the tensions and trade-offs in any given debate. That doesn’t negate the necessity of plainly stating one’s conclusion, strongly and solidly. But after tracing out the contours of any given divide, stating your position can be offered with greater understanding, and more humility. Maybe that doesn’t get as many readers. Maybe the take won’t be as hot. But who cares about that, anyway? What matters is whether or not what one writes is true.

In my last post I argued that pastors should write. Pastors and ministry leaders should learn to write a good theological sentence, and, after assembling one good theological sentence, should go on to write successive sentences to accompany the first. Ministry leaders should also master various conveyances of the written word (memos, sermons, letters, notes, etc.). Why? Because good writing reflects good thinking, and the church is in need of a sharpened mind.

There are a handful of books that have helped me to write a little more clearly, compellingly, and concisely. These books are:

• William Zinsser’s On Writing Well
• William Zinsser’s Writing to Learn
• Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird
• Stephen King’s On Writing
• The Holy Bible

The first four selections include technical aspects of writing and inspiration to write.

The last selection may strike some as an odd choice. “The Bible?” you say, “I thought you were listing books that helped you learn how to write. The Bible is not a book about writing.”

But the Bible is a book that is written and that has had lasting power. It contains language that has resonated across multiple cultures and in various translations, now in multiple eras and ages. It has shaped language, culture, and the human imagination. It is a piece of writing that, in the reading of it, offers a masterclass in communication both human and divine. It contains parables and pericopes, aphorisms and anthology, narrative and history, law codes and ethical treatises, letters and memos, prophetic utterances and sorrowful lamentations, prayers and petitions, agreements and dissents; it conveys the full range of human emotion and contains powerful arguments about human nature, a holy God, and the purpose of human life. If you can set aside your biases and prejudices against this book, if you have them, you cannot help but marvel at the Bible’s power as a work of writing.

Maya Angelou, the American author and poet, said this about the Bible: “The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.”

Pastors and other ministry leaders would be wise to read Zinsser or Lamott or King, and to learn a thing or two about craft. But they should be readers of the Bible, and not only for sermon or lesson preparation. The Bible’s cadences, rhythms, images, and turns of phrase, its variety and its diversity, are incredibly instructive for the writing task. And often, what comes out in writing is the result of what has been put in through reading, experience, and conversation. You cannot pass on that which you do not possess.

The words of the Bible should be hidden in hearts so that by God’s grace they might take on flesh and find fresh utterance through the witnesses and servants God appoints for a new telling of an old story in the present age.

Take up and read. Then, write.