Earlier this week I suddenly had an idea for both my young adult fantasy novel and my sci-fi novel, but hesitated to write them in my usual “idea notebook”. Although the idea notebook has worked very well in the past to preserve ideas before they vanish, it does become hard to look up those ideas later on when there is no order to them and no good way to organize them. I have also started typing ideas in various word documents on my laptop, and separating them according to story, but for some reason I don’t like that, either. I think because there are other things aside from ideas and research I would like to jot down, and a digital document just doesn’t feel right for that sometimes. In the same vein, I can’t very well make a word count post in the blog or the Facebook page every single time I sit down for a bout of writing. So, it finally occured to me this past Monday that it’s far past time I started a Writing Journal! I need one designated place to write down ideas, snippets of research, word counts, and just random blatherings about each story. I know many published authors have admitted to having writing journals, and one (I can’t remember who now) said it often helped her work through plot holes and such. Plus, I think it would be fun to be able to go back years later and see the progress of each story… when you started working on it, how you worked through each problem and idea, how the characters developed, the inspiration for each idea, how many words were written each time you put butt in chair, etc.
I happened to have a very pretty journal I’d bought years ago and in which I had first started to write “Cheetah on the Roof”. I decided that since the rough draft was now continuing on in digital format, I would use the rest of that one for CotR’s Writing Journal. I started it that very Monday, tracking ideas, research, and writing progress. It was very satisfying. In addition, I happened to have another very pretty journal that I bought simply for the fact it looked “science fictiony”, and so that one has now become the Writing Journal for “Guardian Angel”. PERFECT! Now I can keep track of all the fun stuff that goes along with that other fun thing – writing – and not spam the internet in the process! Perhaps best of all, however, is that I will now have a purpose to all of the awesome journals I can’t seem to resist taking home with me despite having no idea what I would put inside of them! HOORAY!
So. That is that. And with that, goodnight!
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