I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
Captain's Log, Supplemental
Writers write in all kinds of ways. My way happens to involve lots of Post-It notes and my closet doors.
This is my brainstorm for my new novel proposal. I’m pretty excited about it, because it involves dogs. :)
Anyway, you can see that it’s kind of like a bunch of Post-Its hit exponential cell growth. Oops, sorry, I lapsed into biologist-speak. Well, you can obviously see my Post-Its exploded.
I just stand there with Post-Its in one hand and a Sharpie in the other and start scribbling ideas and sticking them on the wall. Sometimes I group ideas together like a big amoeba, other times I put random ideas wherever there’s space.
Later, I’ll go through and discard what I don’t like. But while I’m brainstorming, I try not to cull ideas—I just come up with as many as I can, one after the other.
I use my closet doors because they’re bigger than a corkboard. I put adhesive shelf liner on them to help the Post-Its stick better. I had to try four different liners before I found one where the Post-Its stuck rather than fell off, but I’m really pleased because the liner helps the Post-Its stick better than just the paint on the doors.
I finished this proposal last week, so now I’m going to clean these off and stick them on notebook pages for storage. Then I’ll Post-It all over the place for my next proposal!
Writers write in all kinds of ways. My way happens to involve lots of Post-It notes and my closet doors.
This is my brainstorm for my new novel proposal. I’m pretty excited about it, because it involves dogs. :)
Anyway, you can see that it’s kind of like a bunch of Post-Its hit exponential cell growth. Oops, sorry, I lapsed into biologist-speak. Well, you can obviously see my Post-Its exploded.
I just stand there with Post-Its in one hand and a Sharpie in the other and start scribbling ideas and sticking them on the wall. Sometimes I group ideas together like a big amoeba, other times I put random ideas wherever there’s space.
Later, I’ll go through and discard what I don’t like. But while I’m brainstorming, I try not to cull ideas—I just come up with as many as I can, one after the other.
I use my closet doors because they’re bigger than a corkboard. I put adhesive shelf liner on them to help the Post-Its stick better. I had to try four different liners before I found one where the Post-Its stuck rather than fell off, but I’m really pleased because the liner helps the Post-Its stick better than just the paint on the doors.
I finished this proposal last week, so now I’m going to clean these off and stick them on notebook pages for storage. Then I’ll Post-It all over the place for my next proposal!
Comments
I never would've thought of shelf liners.
I got here from the Novel Journey blog's comments section. I've never seen that done before.
Teach Me!