Magpie Mode
Embrace your inner hoarder of shiny baubles. Write the book only you can write.
Our bedroom was filled with scrap fabric.
Our kitchen table was covered with sketches.
My dress form stood in the living room, more pincushion than outfit—and time was running out.
I’d been invited to participate in a unique fashion show called Modified Style, where each designer received a bag of scrap material and free reign to do what they would.
My husband came home as I was desperately sketching, draping, and pinning in order to come up with a dress. As he walked up the stairs to enter our tiny apartment, his eyes widened at the chaos.
I winced apologetically at my stacks of sketches and sewing supplies on the dining table.
“We might have to go to out to eat tonight,” I said. “I can’t clean this up until I’ve figured out what I’m making.”
If you have a physical hobby like sewing, you know that chaos is often part of the creative process. Maybe less so when you’re following a step-by-step tutorial, but if you’re formulating something from scratch, chaos is a prerequisite for creative epiphany.
It’s no different when you’re writing a book.
Creativity is just messy! Which can be fun at times. But it can also be incredibly demoralizing when you’re stuck in the middle of it, unable to see progress.
What I’m about to tell you won’t eliminate the creative mess. But I hope it will help you embrace it, and make the process of writing a book more easeful.
You just have to become a magpie.
Entering Magpie Mode
When I talk to new authors who are stuck in their project, it often boils down to this. They don’t know the best way to break down the book writing process into something smaller.
Ideating, drafting, revising—it all muddles together into one swampy, overgrown mess with no trail in sight.
So they get stuck in the quagmire of creativity, rather than harnessing it to make progress.
Often, they want a formula. A step-by-step plan for getting from idea to book.
First do A, then do B, then a touch of C before handing it off to your editor.
The problem is, that “book-in-a-box” formula doesn’t exist—at least not for books worth reading.
There are no fill-in-the-template, million-dollar methods that will lead you to a book that says the thing only you can say.
Writing a book that truly matters is a journey.
If you want to tap into something precious, human, and uniquely yours, you have to commit to experiencing the full breadth of that journey, not seeking out shortcuts that promise quick wins.
Books worth reading are unique, because they were written by a human who is expressing their individual thoughts.
This means they’re the result of individual journeys—which is why I can’t promise you a step-by-step.
I can show you 10 signposts that will keep you on track during that journey.
And today we’re going to talk about my favorite: Magpie Mode.
(By the way—in case you were curious, my Modified Style scrap bag contained about a yard and a half of cream-colored satin, matching lace, and some hot pink knit jersey. Here’s the final result, modeled by my wonderful friend Adrian!)
Phase 1: Gather All the Shiny Objects
I’ve always identified with the raucous black-and-white magpies that lived around the farm where I grew up in Eastern Washington State.
Magpies are members of the Corvidae family, and share their crow cousins’ high intelligence, curiosity, and obsession with trinkets.
As a farm kid whose favorite activity was scouring the junk heap for treasures and making up stories about what I found, I was basically half magpie myself.
I don’t hang out in junk heaps any more, sadly (though you can read a short story about my second favorite junk heap in this anthology). But I still do collect mental treasures and use them as the basis for storytelling.
(And I still collect physical treasures, too. My desk is cluttered with glittery bits that caught my eye!)
Magpie Mode is all about collecting shiny, interesting things to inform and shape your work.
That intriguing story you heard on a podcast.
That useful framework you heard from your therapist.
A newspaper clipping about a business owner in your town.
A family story, an anecdote from the coffee shop, an offhand comment from a client—all of it goes in the bucket.
This works for nonfiction and fiction.
Right now, I’m planning a new series of contemporary mysteries set in the Pacific Northwest. That means I’ve been immersing myself in local history, clipping newspaper articles, and jotting down random ideas that catch my attention.
Sometimes these ideas are direct—like a quirky historical anecdote that might become a subplot, or a chance meeting in a bar in Cle Elum that inspires a scene. Sometimes they’re more abstract, like the way standing on a foggy Oregon beach me feel.
Usually, my magpie mode is digital. I’ve got folders of saved links, screenshots, and random notes on my phone.
But this time, I’m adding a new layer: the physical. Inspired by choreographer Twyla Tharp’s practice of keeping an inspiration box for each project, I’ve started collecting tangible items that spark my curiosity. A roll of developed film I found in a junk drawer. Stickers. Smooth rocks. Newspaper clippings.
Watching these objects move against each other in their box sparks new ideas.
Magpie Mode is about trusting your intuition.
When you’re in this stage, don’t worry too much about where a piece will fit. If something attracts your attention, trust it will find a home somewhere—whether in this project or the next.
Pro tip: Along with gathering outside material that strikes your fancy, you should also collect your own materials that relate to this book.
What previous articles or essays have you written? What have you posted on LinkedIn that got great comments from your network? What stories or anecdotes do you want to include? Have you done any great podcast interviews that would be relevant? Delivered any speeches or workshops?
Put it all in the box.
Phase 2: Making Connections Only You Can Make
Magpie Mode isn’t just about collecting.
You also need to make time to deliberately pull out your notes and play with the way the ideas interact.
Spend time exploring the shiny baubles you’re collecting in Magpie Mode and seeing how they fit with the things you’ve already collected. Let your curiosity guide you into seeing unique connections and correlations.
That’s what helps you create a deeper, more impactful book.
Ask yourself:
What new ideas spark when you see two disparate things together?
What rabbit trails of research are you inspired to pursue?
What shape and structure is starting to arise from your collection of treasured thoughts?
Magpie Mode can be super fun—and it can even be collaborative. One of my clients came to me with a question he’d been wrestling with for years, which he wanted to examine in book form. He’d collected dozens of articles, anecdotes, and epiphanies along the way, and he brought that hoarded treasure to our first meeting.
Our coaching sessions were all about exploring everything he’d collected in Magpie Mode. We refined his perspective as I gently guided him through interview questions designed to help him gather his thoughts and synthesize his insights.
Slowly, a book began to form.
Something completely different than what was already out there.
Something that could only have come from my client’s unique point of view.
It was incredibly rewarding to be brought in as a guide for someone else’s Magpie Mode!
The most thoughtful writers are those who pick up fragments of the world—images, phrases, sounds, or ideas—that catch their attention. Like the magpie, they may not initially know what they’ll do with these pieces, but they recognize their potential.
Human creativity is about making connections that only we can make.
And that’s more important than ever these days.
Stage 3: Watching the Pieces Fall Into Place
What will you make with all the scraps and baubles you’ve been collecting?
Only time will tell.
I can’t say how long you’ll be in Magpie Mode, but I can promise you that the pieces will eventually click into place if you tease them long enough.
There are ways to speed the process up, of course.
Carve out time for the deep work of engagement multiple times a week, rather than waiting for the muse.
Recruit a friend you can talk things through with, or hire a coach or thought partner to help you explore.
Go on a long weekend retreat dedicated to making sense of what you’ve collected.
Start a daily practice of morning pages to surface and explore your thinking on the subject.
It’s not a fast process, but when you embrace Magpie Mode, you produce much deeper work than when you try to race past it—or than when you outsource your thinking to the robots.
As a reader, I don’t care what an LLM thinks of what you’ve gathered. I want to understand how you interpret it.
I want to know why those specific shiny bits caught your attention. I want to hear your perspective on why they’re meaningful.
I don’t want to read a book anyone could have written.
I want to read the result of your experience wrestling with the ideas tumbling against each other in your mind.
Because that, my friend, can never be replicated by AI.
So, tell me—what shiny things are you collecting right now? How do you nurture your Magpie Mode?
Let’s trade tips in the comments.
(P.S. This is the kind of work I love doing for my nonfiction book coaching clients! If you could use a guide through Magpie Mode—or any other part of the book writing process—get in touch.)
I have found that working through ideas for Substack articles is my way of taking all the shiny bits and giving them some structure, and the comments I get on those articles help me refine the ideas further!