Bewitched & Betrayed -- Organizing my notes

Gracie the Greyhound is 7 years old today -- Happy Birthday, sweet girl!
With all the dog beds, chairs, and sofas in the house, sometime Gracie likes to get snuggly in Lucy's bed (our Jack Russell Terrier).

Yeah, I know I just turned in The Trouble With Demons to my editor yesterday, but even though I'm not "writing" yet, there are things that I need to start doing to prep for beginnning the next Raine adventure, Bewitched & Betrayed. Like organizing my notes. I have Word files, all of them single spaced, two of them are nearly 70 pages long. All of them are filled with character sketches, dialog, scenes, parts of chapters, future plots, and general ideas. I've been accumulating this stuff for years. If I think of something, I write it down. If you're one of my regular blog readers, you know that I have notepads all over the house, and in my purse (actually a laptop case -- it's massive and I love it), and in my Jeep. And the first chance I get I type the handwritten stuff into one of the Word docs, usually the same day.

When I start a new book, I copy these files over to a folder that I've started for the new book. I copy them into the new folder so that the originals still exist. Then I go into the newly copied files and delete everything that I used in the previous book. I then combine what's left into one file and that's what I've got to worth with. Well, that and the plot synopsis that I wrote this time last year to sell books 3 & 4 to my publisher. At the moment, I have over 120 pages of notes to go through. I imagine it'll reduce to around 60 pages once I get rid of stuff I've already used and any duplications.

In the upcoming weeks, I'll let the ideas stew. More ideas will come to me and I'll continue to write them down and the book starts to take shape. I have a loose idea in my head of the plot arc, but the notes help me fill in the subplots. As I go through the process before I start writing, I'll add and also discard plot elements. Important thing: When I say "delete" I don't blow copy I've written out of the airlock never to be seen again. I start a new file for unused ideas. Just because an idea isn't right for this book, doesn't mean that it's no good. It might be perfect for a future project.

That's what I'll be doing over the few weeks. It's nice, light work, and it keeps my brain on the project to come but gives it a rest at the same time. During this time I'll be reading and doing the things that I haven't had time to do for months. For example, planting some flowers in the yard is the perfect idea brewing time. It's one of those mindless activities that lets the creative mind run off and play. ; )

Coming up next week: Among other things, I'll talk about one of the most important things toward shaping the plot -- sitting down and having a heart-to-heartless chat with each one of my villains.

Tomorrow for the Saturday Fun Pic, I'll show you my day-job office.

Happy Friday!
Lisa