October Novel Prep Challenge

I really like to write notes and timelines and such in a spiral notebook. I have one I picked out just for this Prep, but I haven't used it at all yet. (That's coming, though, I'm sure. My outlines are almost always handwritten.)

Right now, each exercise is going in its own file in WordPerfect on my laptop.

I do jot down notes in the notebook I carry at work, but I almost always wind up throwing those away. It seems the ideas I come up with at work are terrible.

I also text myself on my phone. That's almost always "What If" type things that then get transferred to a file.

I'm also a pretty big fan of printing out notes and then scribbling all over the printout. And then laying all that out in the spiral notebook and scribbling some more.

I wish I could call it all orchestrated chaos, but the truth is it's just chaos. I almost always wind up pantsing first drafts without much consulting of the notes and exercises, but all the exercises and note-taking gets me going. I need the signposts it generates, even if I wind up veering away from them.

I used to always write first drafts in a spiral notebook then type them up on the laptop, about a chapter at a time or so. But I got impatient with that, and now it takes place in WordPerfect. I love the idea of the more organizational programs, but they wind up distracting me.