~ 2300 words ~ 15 minute read ~
Whenever the energy is big and I’m feeling wonky, I check the planets to see what’s going on and sure enough - we are coming up to the end of a big cycle, not only globally and galactically, but on personal levels, too.
Have you felt it? Like, wanting to close out old business, re-evaluate everything and start fresh? Move to somewhere new? Reinvent yourself in some way? Turn the page?
For me, all signs point to yes. This Substack was one place it was apparent. More about that in a minute.
Don’t get me wrong, my life is good. I don’t really want to change anything about it, except myself, and for the better.
Maybe the Phoenix summer is making me restless, but personally, I’m sick of this version of me and want some relief from the imposter syndrome that keeps popping up like a funhouse clown every time I sit down to write.
Any other creatives feel me? Overthinking? Distracted? Things are taking so much longer than I had anticipated.
But I also have to allow myself some grace. I’ve got teenagers, and a disabled, newly-widowed mom. The dog has an ear infection. A kid needs new glasses. School starts next week - and my routines will change yet again.
You know - real life. Sometimes it’s intense. It’s hard to get to that '“other place” in my mind where I can go deep. When it comes to my kids, I don’t want to miss a thing - and I know my blocks of time will widen as they get older. *sob*
I also know that I’ve got a touch of the post-partum book-launch blues from launching Garage Sale Vinyl, by Christopher Long, back in May.
Even though I didn’t write GSV, I gave it a lot of love this past year. It’s such a good book, and I’m proud of the product Chris and I put out into the world. It’ll find its readers, as good books always do.
Now, it’s MY time.
And hopefully, I’ll clobber the imposter syndrome with a scuffed baseball to win the prize. I’ll keep taking shots at it until I do. It’s a game of “Down the Clown”.
The prize? Finishing my own book. I’m looking forward to the relief of it.
Chris is already writing another book.
I gotta giddy-up to get this one done and in the pipeline.
—
In the 1970’s, when I was a kid, my mom went to college. It was pretty unusual back then, especially in our small town. She was almost 30 and divorced, and like single mom’s everywhere, she somehow made it work.
I bounced around to different sitters, and when my mom couldn’t find one, I just tagged along to her jobs, to her classes, and to her study groups and student events.
My absolute favorite place to go with her was to the Ashland College Library. I was never a loud or rowdy kid, so letting me free-range in the library while she studied or met with her group was no big deal. Even though it was an academic library and not exactly kid-friendly, there was plenty there for me to discover.
This was when academic libraries still had robust and deep reference collections, walls and walls of indices and guidebooks, and of course:
The massive and beloved Card Catalog. *drool*.
There is something quite sensual to me, at least in my memory, about pulling out that LONG drawer and working with the cards, making notes.
I was reading at a pretty early age, so once my mom showed me how the subject catalog worked and the basics of how the LC call numbers worked, I learned how to find books on topics that interested me.
I mean, who hasn’t known the absolute joy of clutching a fistful of neatly-cut scraps of paper with secret codes written in tiny golf-pencil scratch while wandering giant shelves of books, looking for the treasure?
C’mon, now, that’s straight up thrilling to me. A ticket to paradise.
Often, I wouldn’t find my book, but I would stumble on to something better.
Anticipation. Disappointment. Serendipity. Delight. All right there in the stacks.
These were academic books, too, with big words and illustrations, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing for a seven-year-old to be exposed to.
—
My favorite place, though, was the Reference area. I loved the huge shelf of the Oxford English Dictionary, the way it was bound and printed, the smell of it, the font - all of it was a delight to me.
The maps and atlases - loved those so much.
And don’t even get me started on the encyclopedia sets.
There was a student copy center/bookstore in the lobby area of the library, and sometimes I’d wander over there, too, just to look at all the notebooks, pens, and school supplies. Sometimes my mom would buy me a new pen, or a little spiral notebook, and they had a machine that, if you placed a nickel in the tray and jammed it in, a new fresh pencil would spit out the bottom.
A MAGIC PENCIL. There was a crank sharpener fastened to the wall near the reference desk.
It’s an obsession that I still have - pens, pencils, notebooks, notecards - much to the bemusement of my husband who doesn’t quite understand, but indulges me anyway. He’s a left-handed scientist. He’s the kind of guy that finds one cheap Bic pen, puts it somewhere logical, and happily uses it for years until it’s dry. And he’ll gripe if it goes missing. It’s HIS pen. Out of all the hundreds in the house.
Me: I need all the pens everywhere because surely one of them will unlock all the writing that is stuck in my mind.
And they will be bought randomly and hoarded, tucked away in spots all over the house because who knows where inspiration will strike.
–
After mom graduated, we moved to a different small town with an excellent public library that was only a mile or so from our apartment and not far from any of my schools, so I spent a lot of time there, too.
The Westerville Public Library was the first place I ever used a real computer.
They were an early adopter of a computerized, digital library catalog. The PAC - Public Access Catalog. We had field trips from school to learn how to use it.
It was something like:
Press F2 for Title search
Press F3 for Author search
Press F4 for Subject search
—
For years, they maintained the analog card catalog for the old timers, but I found myself using it less and less.
This was like 1982, I was in 6th grade, and here I was using a goddamn computer and just starting my life in the exciting digital future that my generation was promised.
I suppose all of this roaming around libraries and love of pen and paper set me up for a future life as a librarian, and a writer, and I’ve loved watching technology develop over these past decades. I’ve loved learning to use it, personally and professionally. And I’ll keep using it. On the whole I think it’s been revolutionary. A net positive.
But we, my generation, are not digital natives. Our brains are still a little feral, free-range, and analog.
It’s part of the legacy of being Gen X.
–
I’m a curious person and always have been. I love researching random and various topics and for years, I’ve struggled with how to manage my intellectual life - how to gather and organize my ideas, my reading, my notes and tidbits.
As a librarian, I love and appreciate systems of order for information retrieval. I just assumed that in this day and age, it all had to be digital.
Over the years, I’ve tried a lot of different ways: keeping stuff in Google Notebooks, then One Note, then Evernote. I’ve tried literally dozens of digital-organization tools, everything from link-keepers to mind-maps, to wiki’s, to Notion - and for YEARS I’ve been searching in vain for a way to engage and organize my own personal notes and ideas in a way that goes beyond tagging, or notebooks, or anything linear or time-based.
Because the moment I open any of those tools on my computer, I get sucked away - distracted from the original intent and I end up looking at houses on the beach in Malibu, or I’m on Amazon ordering more pens.
—
I stumbled onto the idea of a Zettlekasten many years ago, but couldn’t quite comprehend then how it would be useful.
More recently, as I was doom scrolling and not writing, I came across a book called Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott P. Scheper.
If you’ve been reading this stack for a while you know that I use note cards, and I’m a jotter. I have a couple of large piles of notes - tidbits, outlines, scraps, scenes, sources, quotes - but have been struggling to find a way to organize them in a way that will work for my writing projects, and for my life.
Then I read this book by this dude and my brain caught on fire.
Maybe the answer to my frustrations isn’t to be found in a digital format.
Maybe it’s time to go back to the old school. Analog.
—
I’ve always kept notebooks and journals - especially during high-stress or emotional times - and I think it’s good for mental health, in general, to journal things out by hand. I know many writers who write entire books in longhand.
But when working on non-fiction ideas, as a writer, using journals and notebooks isn’t ideal. Even bullet journaling wasn’t quite what I’ve been looking for. It triggers my perfectionism.
It felt tedious and too precious, because I really dislike messing up a notebook.
That’s why I love note cards. Non-linear, portable, sortable, permanent, yet disposable, and doesn’t ruin the entire thing if you need to add or remove parts of it.
The author explains so much in this book about how our brains learn, think, compute - the power of handwriting, and how ideas from deep, intentional reading can be recorded and harnessed.
He calls it an ANTI-NET Zettelkasten.
OMG, the brilliance.
He even talks a little metaphysics - as in, your Zettelkasten becomes an entity of its own that you will communicate with as you work on your ideas as a writer. It’s supposed to act like a second brain, and to provide the opportunity for serendipity as your ideas and sources develop.
If it’s my second brain, well, then, it’s my family. I’ve named this second brain Serafina, after my Great-Great Grandmother, born in 1823, Sicily. May she be a steady force and provide me the wisdom and enlightenment I seek over these next years.
It has set my writer heart aflame with possibility, and with hope.
It’s an amazing concept and I resonated at it’s usefulness immediately because finally - a non-linear way to record my ideas, and to find them again, and engage my mind in the deep, non-distracting environment that going analog provides.
—
But let me back up a minute.
You ask: So, what the hell IS a Zettelkasten?
It’s a personal, searchable card catalog of ideas, notes, sources.
MY VERY OWN CARD CATALOG!!!
Do you understand how thrilling this is?
The nice thing about it is that it grows with you as you work on your projects, and it’s meant to be developed over time. Just like a library catalog.
Although the author shares his way of numbering and filing the cards with dashes and dots and symbols - meh, too fancy. No need to reinvent the wheel.
For me, it’s Dewey Decimal all the way. It is what I know and how I think about organizing subjects and authors. It’s simple, effective, and infinitely flexible.
And I tell you what: Letting go of the idea that there is a perfect digital solution for all of my organizational and creative needs is absolutely liberating.
There is no next thing to search for, no more wasted time. No forgotten folders buried in other folders. No subscriptions or passwords.
This is it. Me and the notecards. And the pens. All the pens.
I’m going back to the basics. Back to the simple joys of my childhood. Ink, paper, serendipity. Analog.
Meet my Zettelkasten, Serafina. Hope in a note box.
As we finish out the big energy cycles and reevaluate our futures, I know for me personally, this analog enlightenment kind of feels like I’m looking at things with fresh eyes, turning a page, and starting anew.
Happy full moon weekend! May your next chapters start imminently.
–
Housekeeping tidbit:
In the theme of starting anew, I recently discovered that I broke my Substack in such a way that I could no longer process new subscribers.
After going around with tech support of both Substack and Stripe for six weeks, there was no resolution at all.
Yes, I’m annoyed. But, I also love the platform and want to keep using it.
That’s what I tell myself.
Truth: I just don’t want to deal with any tech stuff right now. I need every brain cell for writing. I’M TRYING TO FINISH MY BOOKS AND A SCREENPLAY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!
So, I said to hell with it and I chucked the old account.
I mean, it’s still there, but I won’t be posting to it. Thankfully, I had a spare account, unused, because I’m a digital hoarder. I still have some tech stuff to tweak on the new account, but it can wait, and I was able to migrate my posts and my subscribers.
However, my followers on the app may want to find me again at @annamarieobrien.substack.com.
Also!
I’ve turned paid subscriptions back on.
To celebrate the relaunch and keeping with the theme of starting fresh, I’m discounting the monthly and annual subscriptions by 20% for the next couple of weeks.
(There wasn’t a way to discount the Founding Member plan, because you choose the amount you want to chip in there).
Maybe in the future, when I get a few more writing samples done, and I go shopping for an agent, and they sign me, and we find a big market for my books and/or screenplays, and I make a million dollars from my ideas and stories - Substack will be obsolete to me.
But for now, I am an independent writer cobbling together an income. I write, I coach, I edit, I publish, I consult. But there are cycles, and there is churn. Most artists and writers have multiple streams of income.
It would be so awesome if I could make Substack one of mine.
—
And finally - a big shoutout to Abby, my long-time subscriber, who not only pointed out the problem with my Substack, but acted as my beta-tester multiple times, and then came in as a Founding Member when I got things working again - what a blessing she is, and I am so, so appreciative.
Writing can be lonely and fraught. Your sharing, reposting, interacting, reaching out with thoughts or encouragement - all of it is a type of energetic support that is needed, and welcome, from my community.
So, I’ll keep doing the work and sharing it with you. The more I write, the less imposterish I feel. A book will be born! You’re watching it manifest, right here, and in real time.
So, thank you for your continued support - energetic or otherwise.
With love and gratitude,
AMO
Hi AMO! I've been reading your newsletter since whenever you were doing your memoir writing class on here (Lauren Sapala recommended you way back when). I feel kind of like a baby version of you. I had a band in high school and worked a soundboard for concerts for a few years. And the only thing I ever wanted to go to college for was to be a librarian (but I hate school so that won't be my future). Now I'm just focused on my main dream of writing books.
I'm only 29 but I also have a love for analog. I've tried making my own zettelkasten for years, but could never figure out an organizational process that worked best for me. So currently it's just a mess of note cards everywhere like you but also in the notes app on my phone. Maybe I'll try the dewey decimal system too! I'm so happy you found a system that works for you!
I love your newsletter and writing style and I'm always excited to get your emails and I'm excited for you to write your new book!!