The Evolution of a Writing Style

How I write is an ever evolving process. The old school me put pen to paper for journal entries, starting in high school. Sometimes, it was a fancy, faux leather bound journal. Sometimes it was a spiral bound notebook. For a while there, I used those black and white marble composition notebooks. 

I wrote my first manuscript in several spiral bound notebooks and then I would revise as I typed it up.

Thinking that I would be cool (for the record, I am not cool. I am an introverted dork of epic proportions) recently, I purchased a laptop and began using an app called OneNotes for my "morning pages," which are my early morning, stream of consciousness style of journal writing to stimulate my creativity in general. I typically mine these ramblings for blog post ideas. OneNotes works well for me (and it saves paper.) I like it. 

Although manuscript #2 began its life in a spiral bound notebook and I plotted out the general arc of manuscript #2 on poster board, I typed up the character and place setting sketches directly into Word documents. I also began typing up an outline for manuscript #2 based on the story board into a Word document. (This style was partially motivated by trying to be cool and going all digital to save paper.)

Here's the thing. I don't like that way of doing things. (And again, I'm not cool, so maybe that's why "going digital" didn't work out for me.) My old school brain finds it difficult to navigate among different open documents on my laptop. I'm not sure why. I waste time toggling back and forth, searching for the tidbit of info that I need from a character sketch to include in the outline when I could easily have found that snip-it of detail on the piece of paper I wrote it down on. In fact, when I found myself searching through my handwritten notes for that detail that I wanted to include in the outline, even though it was typed up in a document, I knew I had a problem. 

Even now, as I type this, I have two different notebooks laying open to the left of my laptop. One is a general, all-purpose idea notebook and the other is the spiral bound notebook for manuscript #2. Notebooks are comforting. Maybe I need to seek help from notebooks anonymous. (Hi, my name is Sherry and I love notebooks…)

Once again, I'm shifting how I write manuscript #2. I'm trying an Arc customizable notebook for the first time. That way I can have character sketches, place descriptions and outlines, bullet point by bullet point all in one place. I can rearrange the notebook if necessary. Add pages. Delete pages. I can grab the notebook and go, especially when I know I will have a 20-30 minute downtime in which I can get a lot of writing done.

I wrote manuscript #1 that way. 20 minute chunks of time can add up to real productivity in the end. With all the documents secured in one place, a notebook and pen is just a better use of my time.  I can type up my notes later, editing and revising as I do so.

Besides, I don't typically carry my laptop everywhere. In fact, it rarely leaves my desk. So to write the manuscript in a notebook and then type it up later seems to be the best system I can come up with for writing. 

At the moment. Subject to change again on manuscript #3. 

P.S. For the naysayer, poo-poohers of the world (and to follow FTC guidelines) the Arc customizable notebook people did not ask me to review their notebooks. Nor did they gift me a notebook. I purchased it with my own money. Nor did the OneNotes people ask me to mention or review their app. They have no idea who I am.