The last couple of years have been quite stressful for all of us. And a lot of us are looking to lead more intentional and purposeful lives as a way to help relieve some of that stress. Author David Amerland is here to tell us how in his new book Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully. He's also sharing an excerpt with us and his writing routine. Be sure to check out the tour for even more. Best of luck entering the giveaway!
Live your life the way you want to. Manage stress better. Be more resilient and enjoy meaningful relationships and better health. We all want that. Such life leads to better choices, better jobs, loving romantic partners, more rewarding careers and decisions that are fully aligned with our aims.
What stops us from getting all that is the complexity of our brain and the complicated way in which the external world comes together. The misalignment between the internal states we experience and the external circumstances we encounter often leads to confusion, a lack of clarity in our thinking and actions that are not consistent with our professed values.
Intentional is a gameplan. It helps us connect the pieces of our mind to the pieces of our life. It shows us how to map what we feel to what has caused those feelings, understand what affects us and what effects it has on us and determine what we want, why we want it and what we need to do to get it.
When we know what to do, we know how to behave. When we know how to behave we know how to act. When we know how to act, we know how to live. Our actions, each day, become our lives. Drawn from the latest research from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral and social psychology and evolutionary anthropology, Intentional shows you how to add meaning to your actions and lead a meaningful, happier, more fulfilling life on your terms.
Read an excerpt:
Whether we realize it or not, we all feel the need for this kind of guidance that gives us a deep sense of purpose. Because we are born physically helpless we have evolved to latch onto and work hard to understand our immediate environment and the people around us. This makes us, as we grow older, intensely pro-social. At the same time it provides us with a ready-made set of expectations, rules and guidelines to guide our behavior that arise from the collective behavior of those around us.
That behavior is the culture we experience and the traditions we abide by. The problem with this is that rather than defining for ourselves what is important to us we accept that which is given to us. That which is given to us is rarely what we want, but it can very easily become what we settle for.
Settling is an evolutionary-programmed trait. Let me explain: Life is hard. It really is. Even if we happen to have the extraordinary luck to be born into a very rich family whose legacy gives us everything we need to live comfortably for the rest of our life, maintaining that fortune and navigating through life is going to be fraught with risks, traps and constant upheavals.
We need other people. Other people need us. That is a truth. But the reasons for this mutual need are usually contradictory or, at the very least, sufficiently at odds with each other to make trust an issue and turn cooperation into a risk-assessment exercise.
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Your writing routine
One of the most frequent questions I receive, as a writer, is on how I write. I am always surprised by that. Writing, like any other individual human activity, is very much an individual choice, at least as far as the ‘how’ is concerned.
Yet, I understand the curiosity. In asking the question any would-be writer and even those who don’t necessarily write a lot but either want to write or already do on occasion, seek to find an “aha!” moment for themselves. Something that will inspire them and also perhaps help them be more consistent in their writing.
With this in mind I have looked at how I write in a more critical manner and what I present here has been structured in a way that will help you get the most value out of it. The writing of a book, any book, is a massive enterprise whose complexity is belied by the ability of a writer to write.
As an example in a different context consider how a painter pulls up a canvas, draws some charcoal lines on it and then proceeds to paint van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”, Constable’s “The Hay Wain” or Picasso’s “Guernica”. If you’d asked them how they did it they may explain about charcoal drawings, shades, shadowing, perspective, the mixing of colors and the choice of brushes but really this is not how those paintings came about. Their artists thought passionately and deeply about something, they found a message that needed to be told and a medium which they could tell it.
It is no different for a book. Each book, fiction or non-fiction has an origin story. It has a message, which is to say it has an intent. The writing routine that’s established around it then is created so that the writer can accomplish two things: First and foremost, finish the book. And second, write the best book they possibly can. These two things have equal weight and there is a dynamic tension between them. A book that’s brilliantly written but loses its way and is never completed is useless. A completed book that’s badly written is a tragedy.
So, how do I do it? Bear in mind that each book I write is not only slightly different from the previous one but it has a fresh audience (with some overlaps) and a new-to-me subject. This means I don’t have a comfortable writing routine. It also means that I will need to research a lot and then make sure the research I come across is explained well enough to make sense to the lay reader.
To achieve all this I start with an idea. Google Semantic Search, for instance, demystified semantic search for online business owners and webmasters. The Sniper Mind showed how we can make better decisions under really challenging circumstances. Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully, is a guide on how to behave so that life, work and play become both easier and more meaningful and we become more fulfilled and happier.
Once I have the idea I need to have a structure for my book, something that will help me put together the skeleton so that I know what each chapter does. That structure is provided by my research. I have always used Evernote to write my books. For each book I open up a new notebook and in it I put in all the research notes, ideas and suggestions that I have on it. I try, where possible, to tag them so that I can find them more easily and can group them, where necessary.
Once the preliminary research stage is finished I go through all the notes and research papers I have and group them. At that point their natural grouping provides a progression of sorts that becomes my skeleton chapter outline. Depending on the complexity of the subject, whether I need to conduct interviews or not, this is a process that can take up to eighteen months to complete.
I then start to write, this is a first draft and I use my chapter outline to guide me. I am aware that, at this stage, I will need to carry out a lot more research and more in-depth interviews. When I write I spend between two and three hours writing each day. I don’t look at what I have written before because I know it will distract me, instead I use my chapter notes to guide me, again.
I stop writing once the words I write stop making sense. I then break for a couple of hours where I play video games or watch the news or go over newsletters I subscribe to and then spend another hour or two writing. So, on average I will write solid for five hours each day. I always finish the day with an hour at the gym. During the pandemic this became impossible so I converted a room of my house to a home gym, with all the necessary equipment. Now there is never an excuse not to finish the day with exercise.
Revising what I’ve written is easier. I start from the beginning. Make notes when I am not certain what something means or if it doesn’t make as much sense to me when I read it as it did when I wrote it and I also rewrite any parts that appear easy to do so. Again, I work a five-hour day. The next day I rewrite and fix what needs re-writing and fixing using my notes from the day before. I then repeat the process for the next section of writing using the time I have allocated each day.
I used to spend a lot more time writing. In the past I used to spend eight-nine hours each day. I found out that I am just as productive with five and although I don’t get as much work covered as I did when I put in longer hours, what I do write is better and more powerful so the discipline to stick to a shorter writing day has improved the quality of what I write.
I never read non-fiction when I write because I tend to subconsciously copy the voice of the writer and forget my own. I always listen to music when I re-write, particularly the second and third drafts of a manuscript. My choice here is either The Scorpions or Imagine Dragons. Both groups make me feel more alive when I am tired.
And that is it. The sum total of the secret to my writing routine. Basically I begin with an idea, plan, flesh out the plan and then work to execute it. That’s it. I hope this helps.
Email & Social Media Accounts
Reach David via email: davidamerland@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidAmerland
Medium: https://davidamerland.medium.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidamerland/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidAmerland/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/david_amerland/
Represented by The Knight Agency
David Amerland will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for hosting this.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good read.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good book
ReplyDeleteGreat cover.
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