Hooray for The Master List! There is nothing like getting all your thoughts on paper…. and yes, I said paper! Sitting right in front of me where I can doodle on it, cross it off, highlight it etc. I have tried the electronic list making but nothing quite satisfies this artist.
All my ideas are added to my The Master List. For a creative person, this list is quite freeing! I can stop trying to shuffle all of this around in my head. Yes, these items and more have been yelling at me from my head! ha! Everything was fighting for recognition… saying things like, “Me first!”, “NO! Me first!”
Now I can decide who is first! Does this sound a little scary to you? Leslie is hearing things? I assure you, this is the world of many of us who are visual thinkers! The world speaks to us! Being the cartoonist that I am, I can actually imagine people as cartoons. Many of my Facebook friends can attest to that fact. It’s quite fun!
Okay, Now to the next step. Working at crossing off all these things on the list! I will keep you posted.
So what do you have on your list?
Filed under:
Kicking Around Thoughts,
Work is Play....? 
I've been trying to get organized lately. First I bought some wonderful office furniture. I have a huge gorgeous lateral file with two drawers and a small file cabinet too. The lateral file was ordered on the Internet and arrived in ten business days. The smaller filing cabinet was ordered from a local furniture store and took two months to arrive. We picked it up last Saturday. Now my set is complete.
On Wednesday, I headed over to Staples because I have no clue where we packed our file folders, hanging or otherwise, and I purchased another P-touch label printer because that remains in storage in LA. I'm pretty sure.
Yesterday, all excited to tame my paperwork monster I reveled in my office supplies. I was going to be the organization QUEEN. I even put on a little music and had at it. I loaded the tape into the label maker. But, I forgot batteries.
Today I bought batteries. After a day full of appointments and a wonderful work luncheon, I came home to write and then thought better of it. I could at last ORGANIZE!
Writing can wait, right? I open the batteries. The label maker requires four AAA. I bought AA. And yes, I'm embarrassed to say I did try and squish the double AAs in the AAA space. Hilarious.
So, here I sit. Still unorganized. Papers everywhere. Organization will be sweet when in fact it finally happens. And I have the most lovely excuse to write.
Days it's taken to become organized [this move]: 105 and counting.
While my WIP novel is out with readers, I thought I’d look at my process for this novel and how it differed from others.
Writing Process for Novels Vary Widely
Writing process varies. First, my process was different for this novel. I find this to be always true, that what worked for one novel, won’t work for the next. In general the steps are the same, but I spend more time on one step, or do them in different orders.
Compensate for weakness. I did some evaluation of my novel ideas, works-in-progress novels, failed novels, and successful novels. I am a very private person; I’ll post information all day long, but rarely will I post anything personal. Frankly, it’s none of your business. Unfortunately, I carry that attitude over to my novels and the most common response is that “I failed to be engaged by the characters.” Of course. It’s none of your business!
So, I went looking for ways to improve the emotional life of my characters and found several helpful books and ideas on a character’s emotional arc.
Find software to support needed improvement. One suggestion on emotional arc was to use index cards to plot, writing ideas for one scene per card. Then, turn the card OVER and on the back, write the character’s emotional state during the scene. In other words, plan the character’s emotional arc.
I’ve used many different ways of plotting and I’ll tell you, never has index cards worked for me. I’ve used spreadsheet plotting and I like it very much. So, I simply added a column for the emotional state of the characters. It did work, but somehow, it didn’t seem to get me moving through the story well.
Enter YWriter, a free program that helps you plan and organize a novel. This time, since I wanted to do a better job of planning, especially the characters’ inner lives, YWriter was fabulous. It has logical and helpful screens that lay out the scenes, plots, who is present in the scene, setting, and I even found a place on the character tabs to add in the emotional reactions.
(Click to enlarge screen shot.)
After planning, YWriter has screens where you can actually write the novel, in a pared down word processor (import/export is easy in rtf file formats, compatible with any word processor).
I found that part of my process stayed the same. I plan and plan, then write, only to find that about halfway through, I have to stop and replan, because the writing has changed so much. Halfway through this novel, I stopped and had to replan. But this time, it seemed too tedious to go back and update every screen in YWriter; I abandoned the program and went back to my word processor alone, with occasional reference back to the YWriter plot.
YWriter was a good experience for me and I’ll probably use it again, because it allowed me to organize so much in one centrally located file. Will I use it next time? I don’t know. I may go back to spreadsheet plotting. But I know I was glad to expand my novel writing tool box with this great program.
Post from: Revision Notes
Revise Your Novel!
Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.
Related posts:
- 4 Files to Prevent Mistakes
- Spreadsheet plotting
- Revising the Outline
From Jules Watson, author of The White Mare and Dawn Stag, comes a new volume in her magnificent Dalriada Triology, Song of the North. Arriving in bookstores in January, this enchanting novel is a story of the ancient Scottish fight for freedom and a love destined for centuries. Born and raised in Australia and now living in Scotland, Jules is an archeologist and freelance writer who brings an impressive amount of research in to her marvelously detailed and atmospheric novels. Publishers Weekly notes: "Archeologist Watson concludes her popular Dalriada trilogy with another richly imagined and actionpacked saga. . . Watson’s work is as inventive, eloquent and exotic as ever; her fans will relish this rousing conclusion."
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My list includes: clean my studio and keep only the essentials!
I suppose I should add that to MY list too!!
Thanks for sharing your Master List, Leslie Ann!
I’m with you!… It really is freeing to get those creative thoughts down on paper. Right now I seem to be obsessed with 3×5 cards… Great for spontaneous scribbling!
Love your playful artwork!… Happy Drawing to You!!
Why thank you Patti! I had a trail of 3×5 cards, so I finally got them all on two pages in my sketchbook! yea! Do your 3×5 cards breed like mine? ha! Thanks about my artwork too. You are so kind!
Leslie