Then a few weeks ago I got an email about a local shop getting a new stock of Makala Dolphins, which, if you don’t know, are cheap, sturdy ukes that come in a variety of fun colors and with the right strings, can produce a pleasantly surprising sound. So I headed on down to the shop, to see if anything struck my fancy.

They’re all very nice, but I fell in love with the yellow sunburst model. Then I remembered that I’d  just got in some of the new Aquila Red Series strings that I hadn’t put on anything yet. Red strings on a yellow ukulele, a promising start-

Then it hit me: all I needed was a red Autobot emblem, and I’d have my very own Bumblebee Ukulele! So I bought all the parts and set aside an afternoon to put it together.

Let’s walk through the… transformation.

So, first we start with the yellow Makala Dolphin.

Next we take off the strings.

Now we get all the pieces together.

I bought the smallest Autobot emblem I could find, but of course it was still too big. I tried removing the signature dolphin bridge, but I decided, why hide this uke’s heritage? So I traced the body of the uke on a sheet of paper, taped the emblem to the sheet, and cut out where the emblem and the bridge overlapped.

It worked perfectly! Time to string up those lovely new red strings.

Voila! Snip off the excess string, and we have the Bumblebee Ukulele!

The strings still need a little stretching, but otherwise the uke looks and sounds pretty good. Once the strings have settled I’ll be sure to record a video of it in action. But for now, it’s on display in my office at work.

What do you folks think?

/jon

I bought three new ukuleles when I took Anne to Hawai’i, bringing my collection up to five. (If you haven’t yet, read those stories in Parts I, II, and III.) So what happened after Hawai’i?

It wasn’t hard to maintain the enthusiasm I’d built up over the vacation. I’d bought a bunch of new strings, and went straight into restringing my old instruments. Then the first order of business was choosing a “primary” ukulele, one I intended to use most of the time. That, along with stretching all the new strings, kept me busy early on, trying to get my strumming back into shape, as I played around with the books I’d bought, along with my old material from the Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band.

The best book I picked up was Barry Maz’s The Complete What Ukulele Players Want To Know. So much useful information, but the biggest help was the chapter on finger exercises. See, my fingers were killing me, especially on the smaller soprano ukuleles, and with weak fingers came bad picking, bad chording- just a bad sound all over. But as I stuck with my Kala tenor, and did the exercises, after two or three weeks I started seeing real improvements in my ability to work the fretboard without killing my hands.

The next break came when I found a tutor in my local area, Dave from Pacific Music. I still hadn’t found a book that I liked, and knew I needed some structure and accountability if I was going to make this thing work. Dave’s been a great resource, helping me get my sight-reading into shape, as well as exposing me to a ton of easy to play songs, (and yes, skipping Mary). He got me using Lil Rev’s Hal Leonard Ukulele Method Book 1, which together with Jumpin Jim’s The Daily Ukulele, I have both a path to follow and a lot of material to keep me interested.

As I got better though, I still felt like the tenor was a bit too much for my hands, and I found myself accepting the pain of playing a soprano, just because the sound and size felt truer to me. I want to play ukulele, not mini-guitar. I started seriously looking at getting the medium-sized concert uke, but I just couldn’t find the variety offline here on the mainland. That is, until I got to visit a music shop in California, while visiting family. There I tested a Kala concert, and I was sold on the size almost immediately. It was the best of both worlds for me; only I wasn’t looking to get yet another Kala. I figured I’d want something cheaper, so that if I didn’t like the size after all (every uke feels great in the store when you want a new one), I wouldn’t feel bad about spending the money.

My first concert ukuele, the Makala MK-C

I waited and looked online, and after much consideration and advice from others looking at beginner concert ukes, ordered a Makala MK-C from HMS, with Aquila strings (Yes, I recognize that Makalas are made by Kala).

Turns out size really did matter.

It was big enough that I could hold it upright and not worry about it tipping over while I moved up and down the fretboard. It was small enough that I could play it standing up without needing a strap. I had enough room for my fingers without having to overstretch my hands. I could keep my arms in a more neutral position at my sides; not elbows scrunched in like on the sopranos.

It immediately became my primary instrument. I played it for a couple months, on through the holidays, having a blast the entire time. Since it was among my cheapest ukes, I wasn’t afraid of it. I could wail on it, really get into it, without having to baby it. That made me bolder on all of my instruments, so I had more fun playing those too.

But it wasn’t long before the itch for another ukulele came back. I’d found my size, but I didn’t plan on playing the Makala for the rest of my life.

I’d been given a taste of Hawai’i-made ukes, now I just needed a justification for getting one.

See, I’d told myself that I wouldn’t buy a really expensive uke until I was good enough to feel like I’d earned the right to play it. I didn’t want to drop some major cash, only to let the hobby fizzle out again, and leave me with even more expensive decorations. I hemmed and I hawed for weeks, before finally giving in.

Playing ukes makes me happy. It’s a great stress reliever. My New Year’s resolution was to reduce stress, and I’ve already got a busy year ahead of me. So I started shopping again.

I knew what I wanted. I wanted a K-Brand, solid Koa from Hawai’i. I wanted a concert-sized. And I wanted it to look traditional, like an ukulele, not a guitar, not completely blinged out. I went back and forth on several models before finally landing on a KoAloha KCM-00. I ordered it from HMS and obsessively watched the tracking number.

My perfect ukulele, a KoAloha Concert KCM-00

It’s solid Hawaiian Koa. Stylistically it’s plain, but beautiful in its plainness. I love the look of raw wood, and thankfully the gloss coat isn’t obnoxious.

It’s my first and only uke with friction tuners. I’d steered away from them before, but I wasn’t intimidated anymore, and I wanted something light and easy to handle. I was happy I did, trust me, this uke floats like a feather-weight boxer. The orange buttons are nice too.

It’s proudly traditional and someday it’ll probably become a family heirloom.

I don’t need a pickup, but I figured, if I ever did want one, now was the time to get it installed, so I got a MiSi Acoustic Trio. It’s quite amazing- no ugly controls, no tough-to-replace battery. It runs off of an easy to charge capacitor, and it’s so light you’d never know it was in there.

Oh right, the sound! I can’t describe it. It’s simply amazing.

It’s been my primary uke ever since it arrived. Don’t get me wrong, I still take out all of my ukes at least once or twice a month, to test how much better I’ve gotten at playing.

And I am getting better. I bought some basic recording equipment and ever since the Makala I’ve started posting videos on YouTube of my progress. I’m enjoying building up both my repertoire, and my techniques. I’ve got more books, am subscribed to all the best ukulele blogs, still go to classes with Dave, and even got a chance to attend a couple of Lil’ Rev’s workshops.

I practice almost every day, sometimes with a set structure, sometimes just experimenting with stuff I’ve read online. I love every minute of it.

I’ve gotten over those first major humps, and though there’s still a long road ahead of me, I’m really enjoying the trip.

Okay enough writing, time to get back strumming!

/jon

P.S. There’s no Part V post planned, but rest assured I’m sticking with it this time.

P.P.S. I even learned The Inner Light!

Honestly, when I sat down to write about my history with the ukulele, I wasn’t imaging a series. It’s just that I hate huge blocks of text. I like my stories bite-sized. So if you haven’t yet, I highly recommend reading Part I and Part II first before continuing on.

Let me set the stage: it’s 2012 (yes, finally, for real this time). Girlfriend Anne and I have moved in together. My ukuleles are in the closet in their cases. We’ve planned a vacation to Hawai’i for the Fall, between our birthdays. Ten nights on Oahu, my first real vacation since college, her first time in the islands.

Right at the beginning of the trip, we go the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. I mean it mostly as an exercise to pick up a few trinkets, and to ground Anne in the “real pricing” of things in Hawai’i, keep us from wasting money in the touristy shops if we doesn’t have to.

The uke that that sets my heart strumming, a zebra wood Pacific Ukulele ESU-T14B

While I’m walking around, I see a stand with ukuleles. So I stroll over, curious to see what I remember. I see an uke on display with a sale sign. It’s a slim-body, zebra wood tenor. I pick it up, and it doesn’t sound half-bad. It’s easy to hold, easier even than the more expensive Kala I have back at home in my closet.

I fiddle with it, and it starts coming back to me. The only song I’d really dedicated myself to leaning in college, a finger-picking intro for September in the Rain. I have no references with me but my own memory. So I start picking. I keep making mistakes, but every time I start over I get a little bit farther, and my grin gets a little bit brighter.

I ask Anne if I should get it. We’re living together after all. If me practicing is going to bother her, than I might as well put this back on the rack and keep on walking.

For the millionth time I’m reminded why I love this woman. She tells me to go for it. She’s been listening to me play, and despite all the mistakes and backtracking, despite all the evidence that I have a long way to go, she tells me she’d love to have that atmosphere around that apartment.

So I buy it, even getting a cheaper price and a free tuner because their credit card scanner breaks down during my transaction, and I have to go run to an ATM to get cash.

I take the uke back to the hotel, meaning to take it along with us a we travel around the island. I strum a little in the hotel room, but otherwise the bug is only nibbling. It’s a nervous new energy- am I going to really pick this up again? Am I going to stick with it this time?

During the week I pick up a some books from a local music store, and a bunch of CDs of ukulele music for us to listen to in the rental car. And I plunk around with that intro to September in the Rain during those the slow moments on the beach.

The next weekend we’re back at the Swap Meet. Now that we’ve been around the island a bit, Anne’s ready to buy some gifts and stuff for the apartment. I mention that I’d always wanted a pineapple shaped ukulele, and that if we happen to see one, I might pick one up.

I knew I needed a pineapple uke, and this solid acacia Melokia was just too gorgeous to pass up

This time I find a different ukulele stall, one with some seriously gorgeous instruments. I can see right away the bump in quality over the stall I visited last time, and the owner confirms it when he starts teaching me how to shop for ukuleles. I find out that the zebra wood I bought a week ago is a laminate, and though it’s still a fine instrument, the wood layers will probably split and make it sound awful in thirty years. But the way I see it, it was the right price, the right sound, and it got me back in the game.

Anyways, as I’m talking to him, I spot a pretty little pineapple uke hanging on his wall, and he lets me take it for a spin.

It’s solid acacia, trimmed in mother of pearl, and has gold tuners. The sound is sweet and mellow, and I know I simply have to have it. After I’ve made my purchase, he takes down a $3000 Kanile’a, and lets me play that for a second. My brain almost melts at how awesome it sounds, even in my beginner hands. Out of my price range, but he gives me a brochure, which I slaver over for the rest of the day.

So fast forward to the final few days of our trip, and so we’re heading up to North Shore to watch the surfers. On the way, I see a sign for an ukulele store, and I convince Anne to pull over for lunch at the taco place next door. Then of course, we pop in to see the ukes.

It’s an ukulele-lover’s dream shop! Walls and walls of beautiful ukes. And ss I get to talking to the guy working the counter, and I see a few HMS logos, I start putting two and two together and see that hey, I’ve stumbled upon the Hawaiian Music Supply’s home store! These are the guys my grandmother bought my first uke from, back when they were selling ukes out of the back of a van.

The last uke I bought in Hawaii, a Kala Travel Soprano KA-SSTU

I try out a bunch of ukes, and Anne just kind of nods and smiles as I regurgitate everything I’ve learned about ukes from reading online on my phone during our downtimes in the hotel. I finally decide I need just one more ukulele, this time a Kala Travel Soprano. I’ve only been gawking at them all week on my phone.

I get the action lowered so I can play it easier, and in a bit of logistics, have them pack and ship me the zebra tenor I bought at the beginning of the week, so Anne and I only have the two smallest ukuleles to get on the plane.

We spend that very afternoon on the beach, watching the surf come in, and now with my two newest ukes, I teach her the beginning of the intro I’ve been practicing all week.

On our way back home we get caught in the whole Alaska Airlines’ network crash, and so we’re stuck in the terminal for hours. But there I am, happy as a flea (on a pile of dogs, you see) strumming away on my new ukuleles.

The bug’s bit me hard this time.

But wait, the story’s just getting started. Do I stick with it post-vacation? Stay tuned and find out!

Update (06-APR-2013): Continue reading with Part IV!

/jon

I first picked up an ukulele in the summer of 2002, but in ten years I hadn’t gotten beyond a half-dozen chords and one melody. By the time I’d moved to Washington State, my two ukes had become nothing more than decorations, empty hints that I was a musician (like guys who “accidentally” carry guitar picks in their loose change). If you haven’t yet, go read that story in Rekindling a lost four-string love, Part I.

Now, before I pick up my ukulele story in 2012, I first need backtrack a little to 2009, with my brief experience with another, inexpensive, “people’s instrument”. I’m talking about the tin whistle.

See, I like small, portable, entertainment. My favorite board games fit in a jacket pocket. I have packs of playing cards everywhere, in my bags, in drawers, even in my car. Now that I think of it, even back in college, when I was trying to learn the ukulele, I was also tried learning the harmonica. Harmonicas are legendary portable entertainment. The only problems were the breathing and all that tonguing. I could hardly keep my breath just being me, so playing wind instruments was just masochistic. Plus, I was trying to learn ukulele right? The harmonica quickly got lost in a drawer somewhere.

So, now it’s 2009, and I get the itch to learn an instrument again. I look at my ukes, but I think of my wrists, and I start shopping for alternatives. At the same time, I was also on a crazy personal mission to watch everything Star Trek, from beginning to end. Why you ask? Because I’ve been a self-claiming nerd for as long as I can remember, but when I really thought about it, I’d probably only seen a half-dozen episodes of The Next Generation as a child. So I set out to correct that.

Wait, what does this have to do with the tin whistle? Or learning the ukulele? Trekkies know the answer.

The Inner Light.

It’s one of the highest-rated Star Trek TNG episodes, and my absolute favorite. In it, Captain Picard, by virtue of a memory implant from an alien probe, experiences living an entire lifetime with a now extinct people. Most memorable is the titular song he learns to play on a little whistle. So now, sixty pounds lighter than I’d been in college, and with Captain Picard at my back, the idea of a wind instrument doesn’t terrify me anymore. I knew I’d found my new instrument.

Me and my Clarke Tin Whistle

I went online and bought myself a Clarke Tin Whistle, but much more importantly, I picked up The Clarke Tin Whistle Deluxe Edition by Bill Ochs. It was, by far, the best book on picking up a new instrument, any instrument, that I’d ever read. As I mentioned in Part I, I don’t have a musical background. And though I had a tall stack of ukulele books, most went straight into the grunt-work of learning an instrument, and just weren’t any fun. Frankly, I’d had enough of Mary and her damn little lamb.

But in Bill’s book, within a week, I had a half-dozen songs under my belt. Sure, Mary was in there, but so were others, longer, more interesting songs that sounded pretty even if I didn’t recognize them. Match that with the simplicity of playing the whistle itself, and I was having a blast. Presentation matters, especially for someone like me, with no musical background. And with the tin whistle, I had an extremely portable instrument that was fun to play, and with the book I felt like I was making real progress.

So why am I not writing about rekindling a lost six-hole love? Why did I put down that whistle?

Guilt mostly.

I felt like I should really be playing the uke. I mean I loved ukuleles. My grandmother had bought me one cause I said I was serious about learning it. I’d even bought an expensive one and dragged it around Africa with me. And so after a couple months, as I spent my time elsewhere, the little whistle went into the drawer along with the harmonica.

So why did it take another three years before I picked up the uke? Guess you’ll have to wait until Part III.

Update (02-APR-2013): Continue reading with Part III!

/jon

P.S. Though I set aside learning the whistle, I’d learned something else, something far more valuable. I’d learned that learning an instrument didn’t have to be all grunt work up front with all the fun at the end. That there was a logical progression to learning to play that didn’t need Mary and one chord over and over for hours. And in any area of study, it’s a powerful thing when you learn not just what you aim to learn, but the overall structure and progression for learning things of that category.

It just takes a good teacher. I learned my first programming language at age 8, but without any structure, any wisdom. I hadn’t internalized what it meant to program. It was through my high school computer science teacher that I got a grasp of how to learn a computer language. What to expect. What I needed to know to be able to use that language to solve the problems before me. That skill, learning how to learn a programming language, later became a cornerstone of my career as a software tester.

It’s the same thing with natural languages. When I learned French in high school, I didn’t really remember a thing later. Like most Americans, I had a scatter-shot of language education, especially grammar. Not that important if you’re a native speaker, as long as you’re surrounded by people who speak correctly, you’ll pick it up naturally. But for a foreign language, especially in my case, where immersion wasn’t possible or even encouraged, I was just parroting most of the time. I had no roadmap for turning my thoughts into words. But in college, I learned how to break a language down, to know what things I needed to learn, so that I could function in an immersive environment. By the time I was learning Swahili in Tanzania, I was driving my teacher crazy because I kept wanting to jump ahead of my classmates. I could see the bigger picture, and so knew ahead what I types of things I was going to need to know. But after ten weeks of training, when I was thrown in the deep end of completely on-my-own immersion, and I swam just fine.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I ended up teaching computer science in Swahili. No way would I have been able to do that, if I didn’t understand how to learn programming, and how to learn a natural language. And computer science is hard enough to teach in your own language!

I first picked up an ukulele in the summer before college- a little late you might say, considering I’d spent my childhood immersed in native Hawaiian culture.

I was surrounded by all the right an ingredients: Hawaiian music and instruments about the house, my mother who not only taught hula, but also choreographed new dances and put on performances, with all of the endless dedication and practice that that lifestyle requires.

Still, I was never forced (like many children) to learn a musical instrument. The most I’d ever done is dink around with a Casio keyboard, learning Elvis’ “Love Me Tender”. Other then that, I couldn’t read sheet music, didn’t know a thing about music theory, never showed more than a passing interest in any school musical programs.

Fast forward to 2002, when on a family vacation to Hawaii, I began fooling around with a cheap toy ukulele I’d got at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. My grandmother asked me if I was serious about the instrument, and that if I was, she’d get me a “real one.”

My first uke, a Lanikai LU-11

I said I was serious, so she bought me a little soprano Lanikai. We got it from the Hawaiian Music Supply, back when they were selling ukes out of a van, before they became the ukulele powerhouse that they are today.

I spent as much time as I could on that instrument, and while in college I even joined Berkeley’s Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band for a time. Had a lot of fun, but it was hard to make progress: I couldn’t practice too much in the dorms, and the band’s “practices” often had 40+ participants, and was really aimed at members who could already play so they could practice the band’s set list.

The best sessions were the after-practice jams at Mike Dailva‘s workshop, who since then has been growing in recognition as a master ukulele luthier.

But I struggled a lot with the size of that soprano Lanikai; I could never keep the thing from falling over, and as this was around the time I started having RSI problems with my wrists and fingers, clutching it upright only made it harder to stay motivated and keep playing.

Thankfully by the time I’d left for the Peace Corps in 2006, I’d found part of my salvation in the larger, tenor-sized ukuleles. My grandmother had loaned me an antique Suzuki ukulele, and through it was easier to hold, it hadn’t aged well in appearance or sound quality.

First uke with my own money, a Kala KA-STE-C

So when I went back to Hawaii after graduation, I picked up a brand new tenor from Kala.

It was easier to hold than the Lanikai, easier to play, and sounded great! Problem was, I still didn’t have any real guidance on how to get any better. I took the Kala with me to Tanzania (logically I’d take my newest, largest, most expensive instrument abroad), and while it served as a great reminder of home during training, by the time I’d be assigned to Zanzibar, the uke spent more time in the case than out.

I came back from Africa no better at playing- my ukes had become decorations, ones I proudly displayed, even if I couldn’t do much with them. I brought them with me when I moved up to Washington in 2008, and I left the tenor out on guitar stand, even though the stand was too big and the uke was always at risk of toppling over.

I hardly touched them, and it wasn’t until four years later that ukulele bug bit me again, and hard. Stay tuned for that story next time.

/jon

Update (29-MAR-2013): Continue reading with Part II!

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

But where to start?

For newcomers, OneNote’s flexibility can be a major first hurdle. Many users try to learn the software while implementing complicated, unfamiliar organization systems; with so many ways to do things, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

There are a million and one productivity systems out there, and whether you want to implement a biggie like GTD, or would rather roll something on your own, there’s always that initial moment when you’re staring at a blank notebook, wondering where to begin.

I’ve gotten a lot of people to start using OneNote over the years; it seems once you’ve been bit by the OneNote bug, you just have to share it. To that end, I’ve developed a simple notebook system that’s easy to get started with and yet leaves plenty of room for personalization later on.

So in the interest of getting new users unblocked, here’s how I organize my own work notebook.

The Notebook

First, I start with a single, all-encompassing private work notebook. Down the line you may consider convincing your coworkers to start a shared work notebook, but I recommend starting with and keeping a single notebook that’s just for you.

As for formatting, it’s easy to get caught in the trap of making your documents pretty- don’t bother. The idea here is to avoid getting bogged down in the maintenance of your notes; you want to boost productivity, not add wasteful overhead. This notebook is a tool, a searchable extension of your brain, not something you’re going to print out and hand around the office.

To create a new notebook, fire up OneNote and go to File > New. Choose to store the notebook on your computer for now, you can always move it later. Give it a name and select “Create Notebook”.

The Sections

Sections are the colored tabs at the top of the screen (left if you’re using the web app). Use them to quickly group related notes, just like tabbed dividers in a binder.

We’re going to create four new sections for our work notebook. To create a new section, simply right click on a section tab (or next to one) and select “New Section”.

Now, within your work notebook, you’ll want the following four sections:

1. Active Logs

Here is where I log my daily work. Every morning I create a new page (click “New Page” under the tab) titled with the date and the word Log. For example, for October 11, 2012, I’d use “11.10.12 Log”. Throughout the day, I add short bullet point summaries for the work I did that day. Any meetings I go to for that day, I create a separate page for meeting notes. Then I move the meeting notes as a sub-page under the day’s log page. Simply click on the page in the sidebar, drag it beneath the log page, then drag it horizontally to indent it under that log.

Sample Page:

2. Active Projects

Here is where I keep track of the projects that I’ve actively working on, or need to keep an eye on. I also keep useful notes in here, especially surrounding multi-step work that I need to do on a regular basis.

For each new project, I create a page with an easy to identify title, and a green project checkbox tag (see Tagging below) so I can know at a glance if the project is complete or not. I then add two headers (Ctrl+Alt+1) in the body of the page: Summary and Action Items.

Under Summary I write a quick sentence or two about the goal of the project, or why I feel the need to keep track of it. It’s usually here that I figure out whether or not a “project” is worth having its own page.

Under Action Items I make a list of items that need to be completed in order to finish the project. If it’s something that I need to do, I tag the line with a blue “Action” checkbox. If it’s something that I’m waiting on someone else to do for me, I give it a yellow “Waiting” checkbox.

I indent items that are dependent on the item above it needing to be done first. For example, I can have a blue action item “Email Bob about next year’s plan” and under it, have an indented yellow waiting item “Bob sent me the plan”. This way I can keep track of what is blocking the project from getting completed.

Feel free to add or change action items during the course of the project. When each item is done, check it. When the project is finally done, check the green checkbox in the title. Any relevant documents I write, relevant emails, attachments, etc, I can insert as sub-pages under the project page. Look for the “Send to OneNote” buttons in other apps like IE and Outlook to help you capture things into your notebook.

Now I have a miniature searchable history of the project’s work.

Sample Page:

3. Archived Logs

Here is where I archive old daily logs for a later date. See Archiving Process below.

4. Archived Projects

Here is where I archive old projects for a later date. See Archiving Process below.

Tagging

Tags are a powerful way for flagging lines of text in OneNote pages. By default, OneNote has a ton of tags with cute little icons, most of which I find horribly unnecessary. The first thing I do with a new OneNote install is to cut things down to much more manageable three tags:

1. @Action (blue checkbox)
2. @Waiting (yellow checkbox)
3. Project (green checkbox with a star)

To customize your tags, look for the Tags section on OneNote’s top bar, and click on the little down arrow at the right side of the list. Select “Customize Tags…” and in that menu you can remove all those unnecessary tags and replace them with the three above.

Now, to use these tags in your pages, simply click on the line you want to tag and then select the tag from the Tag section on the top bar. (Alternatively, you can use the Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3 keyboard shortcuts.) For checkboxes, simply repeat the process to check the box, then again to remove it. (You can of course always click to check the box if you so desire.)

Archiving Process

If you’re like me, you have a combination of short and longer term projects that you need to keep track of. And when something isn’t needed anymore, I need to get it out of my way so it doesn’t distract me.

Here’s where a little archiving can help de-clutter your notebook, and, thanks to OneNote’s amazing full-text search function, keep old work around for when you need it. As we’ll see later (Archives to the Rescue below), there’s a lot of power in storing those old pages away under the “Archived” sections we created earlier. Don’t just delete those old pages! The overhead is worth it.

Bonus: Since OneNote loses revision information when you move pages between sections, archiving helps shrink and streamline your notebook. (I’ve never found the revisioning to be useful, to each their own.)

Archiving Logs

Every two weeks, in alignment with my team’s sprint schedule, I move all of the log pages from Active Logs into Archived Logs, maintaining chronological order. (You can select multiple pages at once in the sidebar by using the shift key. Also be sure to collapse down any sub-pages before moving them so they come along for the ride!)

Archiving Projects

When a project page is no longer needed (either it’s done and I’ve checked its green checkbox, or the project is being canceled or postponed), I move the page (with all of its sub-pages) into Archived Projects. This way I only keep projects that need my attention under Active Projects, and I keep a solid history of not only what I’ve done, but the stuff I needed to do to get things done.

Archives to the Rescue

So, you’ve been dutifully using your notebook to record all of your work, maybe even finish a project or two. Now it’s that “later date”, and you want to know, what was the point of archiving all that stuff? There’s a ton of powerful ways to take advantage of your archives, but here are some of my favorites:

1. New projects are like old projects

Most people have recurring or semi-regular categories of work. Say you used your notebook to track all of the work necessary to onboard a new client. And during the last time, a bunch of important minor action items came up that you almost forgot about. If you were diligent in recording those items when they came up, the next time you need to onboard a client, you have an “almost-ready” plan for doing it again. Simply copy and paste that old page into a new active project, change a few details, and now you can be pretty confident you won’t forget anything this time around.

2. So, what’re you working on?

Keeping a daily log of your work makes it real easy to give specifics to those who might not see you working day in and day out. When your boss stops by to check-in on you, or you need to justify that extra bit of time, it’s nice to be able to say, “What was I doing on Tuesday? One sec, let me check.”

3. The dreaded annual review

An extension of the above, but one I do every year. In the month before my annual review, I create a Year in Summary project page under Active Projects. I then skim through the logs for my previous year and broadly outline what I was working on month by month.

You’ll be surprised how many projects you’ve forgotten about! I always find one or two gems of “surprise work” (work that was supposed to be someone else’s, or that no one knew needed to get done) that popped up in the last year that I took care of. Reviewing the action items for finished or canceled projects might also produce other useful nuggets of work you or your boss may have forgotten about.

Now, with that yearly summary in hand, I have some solid ammunition for my annual review. From there it’s not that hard to distill down to a handful of key contributions I’ve made in the workplace. And so when my boss asks me what I’ve done to warrant a raise, I’m ready with concrete answers.

Summary

I use OneNote daily, and by keeping tabs on the work I’ve done, and the work I still need to do, it’s easier for me to keep my work life under control.

The system I use is one I’ve honed over a couple years now, and it’s considerably simpler than the one I started with. I have two sections for things I need to keep focused on, and two more for my own future use. I keep my tags simple and focus on function over making pages pretty.

My time spent in OneNote grows and shrinks with my workload. If the team’s project cycle is more focused on responding to emails, then I don’t spend much time in OneNote. If I need to micromanage a ton of moving pieces to get a project done, I spend more time tracking my progress line by line on a project page.

So, how do you use OneNote? Was this useful? Sound off in the comments!

/jon

One final tip: Don’t get too hung up on logging your work every day on the day. I find that sometimes I’m too busy to write down what I’m doing, and that’s fine. I usually just pick it up the next day or the day after, using my calendar and email history to remind me what I was doing. But trust me, it’s worth doing, especially a year from now when that annual review is looming.

Also, for your convenience, here’s a sample notebook to get you started:

Sample Work Notebook (OneNote 2010) [8k ONEPKG]

Sample Work Notebook (OneNote 2007) [6k [ONEPKG]

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, though not on anything having to do with OneNote or Office. I’m just a huge fan of the app.

The result: I hardly made any progress, and not for a lack of trying.

I thought I could use the energy of NaNoWriMo, the community of writers and the dedication to crossing the finish line to make a serious dent in my editing. Didn’t happen.

But, I think I have a much better understanding of what makes NaNoWriMo work, and how horribly misaligned I was to attempt to bend it toward editing my novel.

First, the goal is to write 50,000 words, and everything, all the help and support of the website and community, is bent toward making that happen. Every moment you, the writer, have an immediate measure of your progress. The charts and the status updates; they nag you when you’re behind, give you props when you’ve made quota, and give you permission to stop for the day and unwind.

Editing doesn’t have that. There’s no way to evenly divide the work into predefined daily chunks, no word-sprint or prompt equivalents to make quick progress. My progress is measured in chapters, kind-of, but each is unique and there’s no rhyme nor reason toward estimating how much work still lies ahead, or how much work I just did.

Some chapters need just quick-and-easy stylistic updates, others take weeks to reshape, or require painstakingly returning through the text to update little details to avoid inconsistencies.

What it means is it’s hard to find a quantitative measurement on an editing session’s success. The end result of a great editing session can be one chapter polished off, or ten sentences spread across five chapters that get me out of little plot snafus later on.

I had a three hour session that resulted in one tiny paragraph being rewritten, but that I felt was a huge victory for the story.

Not to mention the plans for future books that I have to keep in mind, keeping an eye out for those innocuous, but often important, details that might be difficult or impossible to live with in later stories.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to complain about editing; this is what editing is all about. Nothing worth doing is easy, and I think this story is worth doing right.

The big mistake I made was in trying to shoehorn the energy and excitement of NaNo into editing a book. Don’t do it, it’s a bad idea. The site, write-ins, they’re made for rocking out that precious first draft.

Now, to be fair, I did make some progress editing: pushed through some difficult chapters, made a lot of world building decisions I’d been on the fence about. It wasn’t a bad month, just slow. And I’m not giving up on Hester.

But… it might be time for a short editing break, to recharge those creative juices. In a couple chapters I’ll be at a good pausing point, then I think I’m going to mini-NaNo a couple weeks and maybe write a short story or two, vent off some fun ideas that don’t fit into Guineawick.

And for the future, I’ll use NaNo for what it’s good at: jamming out first drafts in record time.

/jon

I’ve done NaNoWriMo for four years, starting with 10,000 Butterflies back in 2008, and I’ve won every year I’ve participated. But this year, I plan on doing something different.

Not-really-only-kind-of participating.

You see, I’ve been editing the first Guineawick Tales novel, Hester and the Kookaburra King, since I wrote Draft 0 during NaNo 2010. Last year I peaked at 20 hours a week of editing, a part-time job in its own right, and ended with a fancy new Draft 1. After NaNo 2011 my life got pretty packed though, and so it wasn’t until May of this year that I began work on Draft 2.

Since then I’ve gotten a third of the way through Hester, not far as I had originally hoped for, but still pretty impressive, considering everything that’s happened in the last 12 months.

So here we are, the start of NaNoWriMo 2012, and what the heck am I doing?

I have been tempted to start something new. I’ve had brainstorms on a half-dozen other writing projects. They’re all very tasty, very promising little universes.

But they’ll have to wait, because I can’t stand the thought of not finishing Hester. Minus a final once-over sanity-pass, I fully intend Draft 2 to be the final draft of Hester and the Kookaburra King. It’s not that I’m tired of the story- it’s that I’ve finally captured its essence, its purpose, and I’ve seen how the next two novels will play out. Not in exquisite detail- we’re talking high altitude here- but I finally know how each must end, and why, and Hester is the first act in a story I can’t wait to finally read.

I have to see it out of my head, and making progress on that is more important than any other story idea I have bouncing around my skull.

NaNo 2012, I’m going to keep editing Hester. I’m going to take advantage of the energy of NaNo and the community of writing peers for whom setting a entire month aside to writing is perfectly understandable. I won’t claim to have participated in NaNo this year; I can’t even fathom how I’d munge the add/change/delete of editing into a plausible word count, but I most certainly will be working my butt off.

Now I don’t think I’ll be able to finish editing by the end of the month, but I do hope to get over the halfway hump at least.

Anyway, best of luck to those really participating this year. Just keep writing!

/jon

P.S. It’s both odd and kind of funny that I refer to the text as Hester. Odd because I’m 99% sure the next two books will also start with “Hester and the…”; which will just be confusing if I refer to one particular book as Hester. Kind of funny because at home, Hester is what Girlfriend Anne and I use to refer to the book, and given the long time that I’ve worked on it, it sometimes feels as if it’s a real person with a life all it’s own that we’re talking about. Well maybe not a person, but at the very least like a mostly unruly pet that sometimes does the most amazing things.

Do you plot, or do you pants?

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the gist of it:

A “plotter” is someone who spends some significant amount of time planning out their story before they write it. That might mean making notes, writing rough outlines, or sitting on the floor in a sea of sticky-notes, arranging and rearranging their plot, characters, arcs, what have you. Only when that’s out of the way do they start writing the actual story.

A “pantser” is someone who doesn’t plan their story in advance of writing it, who “flies by the seat of their pants”. They may start with just a single scene, character, broad idea, or perhaps even nothing at all; when the time comes to write, they just go where their minds take them.

They’re two different styles, so let’s get this out of the way now: neither is objectively better than the other. They exist on a spectrum, and great stories can be found on both sides and everywhere in between. Each and every writer needs to discover for themselves where on the spectrum they produce their best work.

I wish that’s all that I need say on the topic, but believe me, some people just can’t leave it at that. Every year writers on both sides rear up and slash at one another, each trying to claim superiority while intimidating away potential new writers. So if you’re new to the struggle, let me lay down everything you’re going to hear so you can sidestep the war until its veterans grow up or burn out.

Let’s start with two straw-men on the extreme ends of the spectrum: the absolute plotter and the absolute pantser.

The absolute plotter doesn’t start writing the story until they’ve written the story. Their outlines are so complete, they literally read off a line of outline, and write it down verbatim into their manuscript. There are no surprises, nothing decided on the fly. If you, as the reader, read the outline, you’ve read the story.

The absolute pantser doesn’t even know they’re writing a story until they start writing it. They don’t think about anything in advance: every word, every line, is a straight stream-of-conscious live stream onto the page. You the reader can’t possibly know where the story is going because the writer doesn’t even know.

I submit that for a story of non-trivial merit (define that as you will), neither of these extremes succeed in the real world. And that every writer, no matter what side they may self-associate with, actually exists somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes. No plotter’s story is a line-by-line copy of their outline, and no panster writes free from the knowledge of the lines they’ve just written.

So if everyone is somewhere in the middle, what are the arguments for veering toward either side?

Plotter arguments usually fall around the structural benefits of early notes and outlines. Outlines help ensure plots are complete (beginning, middle, end), and that subplots don’t get left behind. Outlines let us stage longer story arcs, seeding items early on that will come up later, and let us identify pace and plot problems before writing them. Outlines also help us avoid the threat of writer’s block, by giving us a road-map to follow. Notes keep our world and characters internally consistent: Blueberry Hill is always east of town, the main character always has green eyes, etc.

Pantser arguments usually fall around the aesthetics of the writing, and benefits of the spontaneous creative tradition. Story writing is as much a journey for the author as for the reader, and not knowing what’s going to come next is part of the fun. The act of writing itself gets our best creative juices flowing, and when “plot bunnies” – new story ideas that nag at us until we write them – arise, there’s nothing stopping us from running with them. We also get to start writing right away, as ultimately we can’t know for sure if a scene or story idea will work until we try it, and see it on the page.

That’s all fine and good, so where does the bad blood come in? Let’s start with what plotters have to say about pantsers:

Pantsed stories tend to meander and lead the reader nowhere. Stream-of-conscious writing taxes the reader, and it’s harder to interleave multiple story arcs without some kind of plan as to how and when that interleaving will happen. You’re more likely to forget about subplots and even whole characters, leaving the reader questioning why they were involved to begin with. You’re more likely to introduce inconsistencies if you don’t have some easy reference for the things you’ve already established. When you get writer’s block, and everybody does at some point, you won’t have the benefit of knowing where you’re going to help you get back on track. A series of random happenstances with no impact on the future might entertain, but ultimately don’t reward the reader for paying attention. Pantsers will waste a lot of time rewriting to fix all the problems they introduced while writing, problems they might have avoided by just thinking ahead and sketching an outline in advance.

So the, what do pantsers have to say about plotters?

Plotted stories are rigid and preordained by the outline. If you the writer can plan it out in advance, it’s that much more likely the reader will know where the story is going, and your “surprises” won’t be as surprising as you think. Having an outline doesn’t immunize you from making mistakes, but it might give you a false sense of confidence that blinds you to your own inconsistencies, plot holes, character disappearances, and unfinished subplots. Following an outline risks locking out any new ideas that arise while writing- either you plow ahead with the original plan, or waste time restructuring your outline when you should be writing. Worse, you might get so obsessed perfecting your outline, that you never even write the story! How many stories are never written, simply because the plotter wasn’t confident enough in their outline? Pre-planning is a lot of work that might not be your best, and even if you follow the outline to the letter, who’s to say you won’t have to re-write the story anyway?

Finally there’s one attack from both sides that I feel I need to tackle separately:

If you don’t use style X, you’re not making art, where X is whichever side the attacker uses.

It’s judgmental, elitist and downright insulting to artists everywhere. No one has a monopoly on the definition of art, and in the digital age, with its explosion of creativity, such attacks only serve to divide and belittle others. It’s legacy, country club, “there goes the neighborhood” thinking. It hurts fledgling artists, at best intimidating them into using a style that doesn’t work for them, at worst scaring them away from trying in the first place.

If you’re guilty of using “it’s not art”: cut it out. It’s bullying any way you slice it.

Here’s the secret, your ace-in-the-hole argument to shut up either side: revision and editing. Your first draft is just the beginning, so find the style that enables you, and gets you that first draft. NaNoWriMo is all about first drafts, and it’s a great time to experiment. Just remember that in the end, no matter how good of a writer you think you are, if you’re serious about writing and of the piece you’ve just written, you’ve still got a few more drafts to go. The real work is still ahead.

Now to the war veterans, fellow NaNoers, and experienced writers everywhere: November is coming around the bend, and a whole new generation of writers are eager to test their pens. Many will be scared, nervous, and unsure; many will seek our help and guidance.

Let’s put an end to this pointless civil war. Let’s treat attacks from both sides for what they are: trolling at best, bullying at worse. Let’s say the attacks aren’t acceptable any more. Let’s encourage experimentation across the spectrum, and not try to browbeat others into our own styles.

Maybe even try a style outside of your comfort zone- the experience might surprise you.

Okay, time to get off my soapbox and get back to writing. See you in November!

/jon

P.S. Because I know people will ask, I probably align more on the plotter side of the spectrum. I keep copious notes, and I use a rough outline of scenes, each summarized in a single sentence. As my girlfriend often says: “There has to be a plan. The plan can change, but there has to be a plan.” (Ironically she identifies as a pantser- go figure.)

But just because I have an outline, doesn’t mean the outline has me. I’ve signed no contract: if the story is the ocean, and the climax is the shore, my outline is but one route to land. I’m neither tethered to the route nor floating adrift; I’m a surfer cutting my own path, adjusting to new ideas, plot bunnies, bad planning, and all the spontaneous waves and currents that come once the writing has begun.

The outline is not sacrosanct: I add new scenes as I need them, stop mid-story to re-tool and re-architect the outline when the story is going in a new direction I like. When the story meanders away from the outline in a way I don’t like, I stop the tangent and start the next scene according to plan, leaving a note to fix things later.

I didn’t start with my current process: I’ve experimented all over the pants-plots spectrum, with success on both ends. Where I’ve landed works for me, where I feel I do my best work. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

I sincerely hope you too can find a style that works for you.

P.P.S. Thanks to Girlfriend Anne for her feedback.