Editing The Pen Addict 17/transcript (section)

== Sketchnote Handbook ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I want to get into the sketchnote handbook because this looks really cool. When you announced that, I was like, oh, this is going to be great. And the thing that I think I'm going to enjoy the most about it is, like we talked about Rework where it's someone wrote a book. It's a text-based book and Myke's illustrations are in it. Well, this book is like – correct me if I'm wrong, Myke, but it's going to be like sketchnote from front to back almost. Maybe not that much. But it's like you said – you mentioned it's going to be almost like a graphic novel style as opposed to a text-based book, right? Right.

'''Mike Rohde:''' That's exactly right. In fact, I've gone so far as to bring a friend of mine, Del Witherington, out in California to convert my handwriting into a font so that we can actually typeset the parts that need to be typeset, like the copyright pages and so forth. Those will actually be in my handwriting. That's so awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. I don't want to divert you, but that's got to be a serious process. That's got to be a lot of work.

'''Mike Rohde:''' Well, I have to give a lot of credit to Del. I did a lot of work to produce the letter forms, but he's done a lot of work scanning and drawing them in and producing a font from them. And it's turning out really, really great. We're still in the process of finalizing that, but that's going to be a lot of fun. And our intention is, after the book's released, to offer the fonts for sale for anybody who wants to have handwritten fonts to match that. So it's kind of a fun thing to not only use it but then to share it with other people, and then they can find ways that they can use it as well. So, yeah, it's a very different book. And I think I'm very excited to be working with Peach Pit. They're the ones that are producing the book. We're aiming for an October release for the book. And the thing I like about the book and working with Peach Pit is they're just so open to trying new things. You sort of have this idea sometimes that book publishers are very stodgy, and there's only one way to do things their way, and they're not open to any change. And I think what I like about Peach Pit is they're just so open to trying things. And so when I got connected with them, one of the reasons I chose to go that way was that I could have full control and that we would intentionally make it like a graphic novel. It's going to be all hand-drawn and all sketched throughout the whole book, which is a little bit more of a challenge for me. I can't just sit down and write the text and hand it off to someone else because then I have to convert it to illustrations and produce the final work. But I think in the end, even though it's going to be more work for me, I think the end result will be a lot more interesting and a lot more fun. And I'm excited. I'm sort of in the middle of it now. So I'm a little bit scared and a little bit excited at the same time, like scared and wondering if I'm going to meet the deadlines and how – do I actually – do I have the authority to be writing this book? That keeps popping up in my head again and again. But I think it's going to be a community book where I'm involving 12 – at least 12 other sketchnoters who are going to provide information and maybe more. So they're going to provide some stuff. I have to select those people yet. So it's going to feature other people in the community and show the variety. That's one of the keys to the book is show the variety of the work. But then get down into a couple of things, how to listen well, why you should even consider sketchnoting, what's the benefits. Like can it make you take notes better? Can it make your note-taking fun? That might even be the more important of the two things. And then finally drawing principles out of the sketchnotes that you see so that you can actually apply these ideas in your everyday notes. Even if it's – you take regular notes and one quarter of your page, you doodle a little bit and you use these techniques. That would be a huge win, I think, for the book just to help people to have options and to make notes that they enjoy creating and having fun so they can't wait to take notes at the next event or boring meeting about insurance at the company. So that's really the goal of the book is to reach out to a lot of people and give them options.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think that's great. I think it's – and you definitely have the authority to write that book if my opinion counts for anything, which it doesn't.

'''Mike Rohde:''' Thank you very much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I'm really excited for it. It looks pretty cool. Myke's been doing some posts about the sketching and that's where I saw the pencil. I was like, oh, he's using pencil to get all these ideas down for the book. I hadn't seen many pencil sketches. But, man, your style is very – I can notice it from a mile away, which I think is good. I mean you've really developed this style over the years and I think it's awesome. I'm really looking forward to this book.

'''Mike Rohde:''' Well, that's good and we just got the covers approved today. I was submitting covers. So the next – so two things. You mentioned that I'm documenting the process. I find there's so many books that are put out and you don't really know what the process is or how hard it is or what you're really going through. So I thought it would be fascinating to try and capture that a little bit and share that with people as a living record of some kind. But certainly it helps people get excited about the book to see it slowly coming together. And we just finished the cover approvals today and I've got lots of people looking at it and helping. And so hopefully at the next post I can share a little bit of that and talk about where I'm at. And it's a tough project, but I think it's going to be worth it when I'm done. That's what I keep telling myself anyway.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'm certainly looking forward to it and I definitely keep following the process and I'll be anxious to see more of your thoughts on it. But yeah, it looks really good. I think it's going to be – I think it's going to do really, really well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's good. Yeah. I think that about wraps it up for today. Myke, do you have anything else you want to talk about as far as sketchnoting goes or any other projects or anything else you want to mention?

'''Mike Rohde:''' You know, I would say that if you're curious about sketchnoting after hearing about this, I think Myke and Brad are going to have links in the show notes. Go check it out and give it a try. I always recommend to people not to be afraid of it. The big message that I've been sharing with people for the last year when I go to speak is, you know, sketchnoting is about capturing ideas. It's not about art. So if you're a bad artist, if you don't feel like you can draw at all, that's okay. That really the message to you is, how's a way that you can capture these ideas so that you can remember them so they're meaningful to you? And then maybe they're meaningful to other people because then you can share them. When you look at those visual notes again, you can say, oh, yeah, we talked about this and that. And, you know, it's a way of mapping out your thinking. And so don't let the fear of not being a good artist hold you back. If you feel like you're a bad artist, just don't show anybody. So that's my encouragement is just give it a try and try it out. And there's tons of links. Sketchnote Army can show you a wide variety of quality of art but also approaches. And just give it a shot and give it a try.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I've made sure that I've got everything in the show notes. There's loads of links to all of Myke's stuff. Okay. I want to thank you so much for joining us, Myke. It's been a real pleasure having you on. And I'm really, personally, I'm really excited about the book. Oh, thank you. Sketchnotes, I've been, I kind of knew of sketchnotes before I knew of you, if that makes sense. I kind of was aware of the work that you've done because I'd seen it around in reworking on some blogs and stuff. And it kind of fits in with the way that I like to take notes where it doesn't really make sense to anybody but me. And me and Brad have spoken about that before. So I'm really excited for the book as a way to kind of help me really get into it. And so I'm kind of holding off a little because I'm that excited about it. I remember when you announced the book, I think Sean Blanc had linked to it. And that was how I found out about the actual book and sort of got to know you a bit more as a person from that. And I'm really excited. And we must have you back on the show when the book is coming for release. Yeah, that would be great. So we can talk about it again and catch up with you about it.