An "old" method used to be to put individual items on notecards. These could be rearranged repeatedly, with additional cards inserted as ideas were either fleshed out or fit into a larger context.

It's writing, but not (yet) writing a linear, not to mention final, draft.

I understand that these days some people work in a similar fashion, but with Post It notes. The advantage being that you can spread them out over a table or wall or similar (walls are then a convenient source or otherwise unoccupied surface area), and they won't be as easily inadvertently jostled out of order.

If you are worried about losing a card organization scheme, when they are laid out in such fashion you can take picture(s) in order to preserve a record. This can also serve as a backup mechanism against losing the cards.

It also works for handwritten notes. You do not need to spend a lot of time on the pictures if that time is not productive. But the pictures are so easy to take -- one can just snap them at the end of each day or workday. If your 4 year old randomizes your stack, or you forget your notebook while juggling 3 other things, all is not lost. If that never happens, all you've lost is a couple of minutes' clicking and some non-volatile memory capacity.

Behind all these comments, is the fact that for me, writing long hand is still sometimes most productive. If the volume of output is less, the concentration tends to be higher. And it can be accomplished most anywhere, at a moment's notice.

There's also the kinesthetic aspect of long hand, to which I respond strongly. Knowing one's learning and interaction style may be helpful. For me, a physical relationship/interaction drives heightened awareness. Others may be more visual, or acoustic. I wonder whether personal recorders / voice notetaking devices work particularly well for the latter.

Perhaps this is one of the situations where "build one to throw away" is good advice. Once you've spent four weeks writing a sketchy book-length ramble on your subject of choice, you'll have a much better idea of the size of the task ahead of you, and plenty of ideas on how a much better book on the same subject would be arranged and written.

Then, don't start rewriting your manuscript. Burn it and start all over again.

I've never written a book, but I plan to eventually, and this is the approach I plan to take.

I actually wrote some 150 pages of a first (technical) book before sending out proposals to 10-15 publishers to which I received a resounding ... nothing. I think maybe one rejection.

After a year of feeling a little bummed about it, I tried again, this time pre-clearing topics with the publishers and got a proposal accepted.

But the advice that stuck with me is to just write. Sure, plan out what you're going to write ( topics + sub-topics for non-fiction, storyboard for fiction), but otherwise, just let the words flow. You're going to butcher the crap out of it later on when you start editing it anyway, so don't _start_ by worrying about it.

I still have those 5 chapters of that first "book" I never wrote. I like to go back and look at them every once in a while -- they're not great :-P.