As you might have gathered from the rest of this website, I got a degree in mulimedia design. And if you read some other posts of mine, you might have also gathered that I am currently not employed as a designer. I work as a retail employee selling liquor and even though a lot of things happen there it is not my dream job and I certainly don’t want to be there forever.

In fact, these last couple of weeks(?), I noticed that I am really craving some type of intellectual stimulation. The type of mental stimulation I got during my college time. So, I figured let’s check out the Design Theory section at the bookstore I frequent. That is how I came across this book. A, potentially, nice blend of my interest for design and this hobby of writing these posts.

Summary#

The book goes through the steps of writing using the N.O.D.E. method. N.O.D.E. standing for Note, Outline, Draft, and Edit. According to J.B. with this method you should have an easier time overcoming the issue of the blank page problem otherwise also commonly referred to as “writer’s block”.

In the book he goes into depth about each of the steps within N.O.D.E. and also proceeds to give some further writing tips on sentence and paragraph structuring. Each of the steps has been purposefully crafted to support each following step you take within this method. He elaborates on the importance of note taking, research and sketching in the first step (Note) and also why it is crucial to do those things.

Other than N.O.D.E. there are also other methods that help with a range of things related to writing. One of these methods being Zettelkasten that support note taking and connecting old notes together. The book does all this in a concise manner and, at least this version, is only 160 pages long.

My opinion#

The book is more of a guide than a normal book I would normally review here. This doesn’t stop me though. I read it so I could go back to at least writing a post for this blog. Something I have been craving to do for a while now. Before this post, I did start writing another post but eventually dropped it after I noticed I fell down a research rabbit hole. Anyhow to get back on topic, I think I would recommend this book. Not to designers specifically but to anyone who is experiencing any kind of writer’s block. It didn’t help entirely for me but small steps can take you a long way