Okay. Time to start acting a little more organized. First off, some business. I am going to do that strip I mentioned coming up soon, so keep looking for it. Heads up: Josh, Gail, Yvonne -- you're in it. It takes place at Zuni. Enough said.See, there are cool friends, and then there are the kinds of friends who get bent out of shape because you put them in a comic strip. I'll let you know what kind of friends I have in a few days, I guess.
Next, I've been forgetting to pump up my next gig: I'll be at Flintridge Books, 964 Foothill Blvd. in La Canada, CA this Sunday at 4:00 for their Writer to Writer program. I will be talking, bouncing off the walls, reading from in the path of falling objects, and I also have a special surprise -- I'm going to read some little bits and pieces from next year's release The Marbury Lens. Oh, and I've got some T-shirts to give away, too.
More on that coming up...
Yesterday, a writer asked about tips on staying organized when writing a novel: Do I use index cards, write outlines on legal pads, keep folders, use novel writing software, etc. -- you know, all the stuff that real writers do.
My answer was, "No." I don't do any of that. I just start writing in Microsoft Word, the pages pile up, the word count grows, and, in time, I have a novel.
Well, I do lots of quirky stuff along the way, especially regarding backing up copies and so-forth. And, since I usually get ideas faster than I can write them down, at the very end of the document, I keep a numbered list of things that pop into my head that I want to get into the story. Sometimes, these items may include web addresses so I can look at pictures of places, or access some information about some obscure referent in my story (hint: the next novel has a little story, a bizarre one, about an obscure saint).
Then, as I go through and hit these points, I'll usually either highlight them in color, or delete them from my list.
That's what I do, but every writer is always going to find his or her own perfect way of doing things. I actually do know some writers who write things down -- by hand -- on paper.
Yikes!
