Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

organization

Creativity: How do you gather your bits and pieces?

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Organize the bits and pieces.

I’m brushing my teeth and an image comes to mind. It’s intriguing, and I feel the need to race for my computer, but I have to get ready for work. There is no time to pursue this image and the possibilities it offers.  So I head for the library catalog box I bought on eBay and take a blank index card out, and scribble the image and the beginnings of what I thought it was opening up to. I throw it behind the label marked with an “I” (for “idea”: I’m into simple).

Next day I’m putting on makeup.  A conversation begins in my head (no, I’m not crazy. They’re characters in a book I’m writing). Another card tossed behind “I.” Then I’m getting ready for work again.  Back to the study, the index box, a blank card, scribble, toss behind “I.”  Sure there is a pattern showing up here:  I ridiculously creative when I’m getting ready for work.

But you get the picture.  It’s getting pretty full behind that letter. When the weekend comes or grading lets up and there isn’t a multitude of todo’s on my list, I’ll rifle through that stack, see who has been partnering up with whom.  I’ll work on a story or develop another scene.

I decided to gather these bits and pieces of subconscious rendering into something more searchable.  I have two sets of organized ideas in that drawer, those used and those waiting to be used.  My old habit was to write them in notebooks, record them to my memo app, fit scraps of notes in a pocket folder or a manilla file in a rack on my desk, wherever I could find a place to mark down my moment of inspiration.  My ideas were all over the place (some still are).

The new ones and a number of those already noted somewhere are now landing in one place ~ that old library card index box.  I have to admit I did not come up with this idea.  It is Robert A. Heinlein’s.  When I read his biography by Patterson, there was mention of how he needed a system to keep track of his ideas and his published works. So he and Ginny Heinlein came up with organizing the index cards he scribbled on. He would wander around with those jottings for his current book on cards stuffed in his pocket. He’d take them out and shuffle through them when he sat down to write.

I thought if it worked for him, I might try it. I am a reasonably organized person and this simple approach fit my style. So far, it seems to be working out.  One description of an end of a story went in to the drawer.  About a week later, I went in search of it and added some details. Then two days later, I was able to sit down and work on the story.  The original note had been residing on my phone on the notepad app for more than two years.  I would recall it now and then, and forget where it was.  Gathering the bits and pieces and writing them onto the cards to place in the box dug up lots of scribbles I had forgotten, mislaid or remembered but had not been able to find. But now they are gathering in one place.

I could have entered them all into a digital organizer, and I am pretty computer savvy, but I like the tactile effort of going through them.  There is something much more intimate about the shuffling of the cards that inspires my creativity so much more than the occasional digital attempts I made to record my creative tidbits.  And my squirreling them away in all manner of places wasn’t helping.  My card file seems to be working.

Do you have a way of keeping track of your inspired bits and pieces. If so, please share it.

#creativity
#Heinlein
#organization

Advice: How I keep myself from getting all mixed up about who I am

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All me, just different.

Like most writers, I have a day job.  I am a teacher.  I am also a wife and mother, so adding a writing life just increases confusion to the standard complicated life of this everywoman.
I have to keep them from overlapping.  My teaching is about the student, not about what I do in my spare time. (Did I actually say I have spare time?  Little pebbles of time I can sometimes shaped into a useful mound is more like it.)  And when my husband needs to rant on about politics, house building, or the barking dogs next door, I can’t be Mrs. Teacher Lady or the Don’t Bother Me Now I’m Creating person.  Same goes when my daughter needs to talk boys or fashion or Minecraft, where she wants to go to college or,…..  Back to keeping them from overlapping because I think you get the picture.
I found
that setting up different accounts on my computer helped.  Each is named specific to that person, has a
unique password, and the desktop and Firefox persona are designed to express the
habits of the individual.  The bookmarks
for each personality are only on the login they belong to.  So if I get confused and want to go to a
particular site, I won’t find the address in my bookmarks which is a quick hint
to me to check who I am.  Each email is
unique and won’t have the same contacts either, so I don’t have to check my
email to make sure the right name is at the bottom.  (I had one awful panic thinking I had not clicked on the write persona for an email I was sending when I kept everything on one login.  Not going through that again.)  My phone is rigged to check all the email
traffic, but they are not lumped together.  I keep them separate with different
signatures.
So when I am L. Darby Gibbs, my desktop is an ever changing landscape of mountains, trees and flowers that remind me of New Hampshire.  The mom/wife in me has a more organized setup: a single landscape of an old stone house with a bright red door and roses by the stoop.  Teacher lady sports a cubist environment.  These personalities are reflected on my Mozilla page design as well.  The profile picture for each personality is different, too.
That is my simple solution.  The person I login is who I am.  It is particularly easy on Windows 8 to have all three personalities logged in.  I can moved from one to the other fairly quickly, yet it is clear which is which. 
So if you are juggling emails, platforms, website logins, and audience, try creating different computer logins.  There is no law stating that each person must really be a different person.  Just like when you set up that account for the child/ren in your life, you can also set them up for the different aspects of your life without feeling as if you have a split personality.
Do you have a simpler way of doing this?  I am all about simplicity, and I would enjoy hearing how you manage your different selves.

In search of the ideal timeline program

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I have posted in the past about my search for my holy grail of keeping track of time travel in my novels, especially when the movement forward and back happens repeatedly.  My third book in the series is proving to be more complicated in movements than the second.  Mick and Em not only go back in time, but they find themselves making repeated jumps into the consecutive moments. And to make it more complicated, another character is moving back and forth as well as remaining stationary in No-time, yet still time is passing.  That does not sound clear in this simple writing, and it is more complicated when actually writing the story.

So I have selected and tried three different applications to keep track of time travel.  In this post I am going to evaluate these three based on the criteria of my ideal platform.

Criteria:

  1. A horizontal line on which I can
    assign dates (and create dates that don’t yet exist) 
  2. Attach key
    points to them 
  3. Add little bubbles or boxes that
    connect to those points for summary or notes 
  4. Be able to close them
    up as I move along the timeline 
  5. Open them all up and see how it lays
    out.  
  6. Able to click on them and move them if I wish.  
  7. Have the program on my computer
  8. Print out the timeline
  9. Be capable of showing overlap of other novels, written and planned.

The three programs I have been working with are OneNote by Microsoft,  Timeline by The Timeline Authors available from SourceForge, and Padlet (formerly known as WallWisher) at Padlet.com.

Using OneNote for keeping track of time travel events
OneNote as timeline

OneNote
I have been using OneNote the longest and found it to have numerous qualities that have nothing to do with keeping track of a timeline.  It has proved extremely useful to me in other areas, namely keeping track of my research and publication information.  It has proved a fairly good “time” organizer though still not my ideal. Its proximity to all my other support materials is an important point though.  But that is not on my list of ideal qualities for a timeline. 

  • It does not provide a horizontal line or any line for that matter. But I can create a series of vertical boxes with time, setting and key plot points. (However, this is something any word processing program could do.)  
  • I can attach key points
  • I can add additional text boxes
  • These cannot be “closed”
  • Nor can they be “opened” at will
  • I can shuffle them about to reflect changes in the text
  • The program is on my computer and, in fact, came with the loaded programming.
  • I can print out my “timeline” easily without any format changes.  It looks the same on the computer desktop as it does in printed form.
  • It cannot overlap other timelines easily.  I could muscle it in, but it would be awfully awkward.

So out of the 9 ideals, it provides 5.  Score: 5/9

Timeline program for keeping track of past, current and future time
Timeline as timeline

Timeline
The next timeline program I tried out was appropriately named Timeline.  I have only used it for about a week.

  • It does provide a horizontal line on which I can place time markers with my choice of dates, and it is not limited to history already lived. 
  • What is shown in the note is a title or short summary at best. 
  • It does provide secondary bubbles for additional information which can be fairly detailed.  A window pops up with several features, including attaching files and links.
  • The timeline itself can be stretched and squeezed, but the bubbles only appear when the cursor hovers over them. The timeline adjusts as the time is stretched or squeezed into a short time view.
  • The bubbles open as needed.
  • Movement of the events has proved problematic.   They can be easily adjusted along the line, but the notations also move unexpectedly to locations not intended.  Probably time and learned finesse will correct this, but the instructions are so limited that I spent a lot of time just trying everything to return a notation back to the spot I had it originally before it almost (clearly I had done something) spontaneously  moved.  Without clear instructions, trial and error rules the learning curve.
  • This is a freeware program, and I downloaded onto my computer without trouble.
  • The timeline can be printed out, but legibility was dependent upon how tightly they were scrunched or stretched out.  Could be a problem when scenes cover short amounts of time and the novel extends over a longer period of time.
  • Overlap of novel timelines is difficult.  I had to color code individuals to tell them apart and would have to do something similar for different books.  There are two features: categories and periods.  The descriptions of these was quite limited, so I am uncertain if it would be possible to designate categories as individual novels or if periods would be better.  When I tried using them, they appeared below the horizontal timeline and overlapped each other which interfered with the purpose I had determined I wanted to use them for.

Out of 9 ideals, it met  6 1/2.  Score: 6.5/9

Padlet as timetravel timeline
Padlet as timeline

Padlet
I have made use of Padlet most recently and have spent about three days on it entering just the opening of book 1, the entirety of book 2 and the first five chapters of book 3.  Visually, it is the prettiest of the three with some interesting additions.  It feels the most like a wall of sticky notes, which is the manual ideal I wish I could do, but my husband has a sense of decor and sticky notes aren’t fittin’.

  • Though it does not provide a built-in horizontal line, putting the little “stickies” in place just as I would on a wall created one easily.  I put my dates on the label of the sticky, but I could just as easily provide stickies as tiny markers at whatever interval I want.  I have added the option of several horizontals.  So book one as shown in the picture is furthest to the left with only two stickies at this time.  I plan to raise it up higher as the “wall’ appears limitless in all directions.  Book two is next and is dropped lower.  Book three is two more steps down and because it has two plot lines occurring at the same time, it has two horizontal flow lines which will meet up later in the novel.
  • I can add additional information beneath the heading on the note. It has a red label at the top of the sticky and a secondary notes
    section beneath on the same sticky. The stickies can be lengthened
    horizontally or vertically.  I kept them fairly uniform in width and
    created a short hand summary format that covered the main points.
  • Rather than secondary bubbles, it does provide for inserted pictures (see my book covers), inserted internet media of any type (video, photo, doc, etc.) or use my computer camera to take a picture, bonuses not on my wish list.
  • You might say the sticky is the closed version.
  • A click on the note does bring up a full screen display of the note and attachments as well as means to post to Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Google+, email and others.  Additionally, the wall itself can be stretched and shrunk with ease (especially so if you have a touch sensitive screen.)  Arrow keys move the view from note to note in the screen-sized view.
  • The stickies can be moved easily about the “wall.”  If I could make a suggestion here, it would be to be able to move the notes in large groups rather than one at a time.  I have not found a means to do this, but perhaps that will come up.   The instructions do include sending requests for additional features.  So I will be asking for that one or instructions how to do it if it is already a feature.  The traditional drag and highlight has not worked.
  • This is not a downloadable program but is accessed and free at padlet.com with login and password.   However, privacy settings are available making it public or completely private.
  • The file can be printed in pdf, csv or excel.  The printout does not look like the wall, but it has all the info that I have inserted.  Since I only added pictures of my covers, I cannot say what it does with other media links.
  • Overlapping of book is definitely practical and possible. I did it with three books and intend to do it with all seven.

How did this program fit my criteria?  Pretty well.  Of the 9 desired features, it had some version of 8.  Score: 8/9.

At this point, I prefer Padlet which to my knowledge is marketed more as an educational tool for students than for timeline creation, but it is highly adaptable, pretty, fun to use and it is so much like having a wall of sticky notes that I am looking forward to seeing how it continues to make keeping track of time travel plot points easy.

Let me know if you have found the perfect timeline program or if you see a criteria you would like me to apply to any one or more of these programs.

OneNote will continue to be my research and publications notes filing goto program.  It has been great with holding my notes for clothing over the centuries, cobbles stones, Boston Common, epidemics, etc. Keeping track of timeslines, …. nah.

Since I cannot have a wall of sticky notes for a visual timeline

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Keeping time under control

Keeping track of a timeline in my novels has been a constant frustration for me.  I have tried numerous approaches which were only partially satisfactory.  I am trying a new one out for my second novel in my Students of Jump series.  Time is important because I have my characters moving through large chunks of time on occasion, and it gets tiresome rolling back pages to see what the date was the last time my character was in that place or determining progression of several events that are occurring at the same time. This can’t be a problem I alone am having.

My dream timeline app will give me a horizontal line on which I can assign dates (and create dates that don’t yet exist) and attach key points to them.  I want to be able to add little bubbles or boxes that connect to those points for summary or notes and be able to close them up as I move along the timeline or open them all up and see how it lays out.  I want to be able to click on them and move them if I wish.  But enough about what I want because that is not what I found.  If you find my holy grail, please let me know.

I need to keep track of time as it relates to growing a clone.  This simply cannot be found in mainstream iPhone apps.  I have this new laptop, and it has software new to me.  Some of their names are familiar, but I have not had any experience with them. 

I looked up the description of OneNote and checked out the video on it.  Okay, worth a try, I thought.  I was willing to accept a vertical row of boxes.  It did not quite supply the series of little boxes I was hoping for. (Though it may yet. I’ll keep looking. BINGO – I can make little text boxes that can be moved about.)   After some playing around, I worked out a system of using the time markers from my book plus a short synopsis of the related event.  It seems to be working.  And I won’t have to search though my desk for that paper I last scribbled a timeline on for book 1.  I was also able to set tabs in the same notebook for character lists, publication info and notes.  So it might prove useful for other reasons.  Not my dream timeline, but it’s workable.

What do you do to keep track of your novel timeline? By the way, my husband will not let me take over a large wall and put sticky notes on it.  That is my other dream timeline, but alas, it cannot exist.

Narrative Mode #9: Shakespeare’s HAMLET as a narrative plot

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Following the Hamlet narrative brings a lot of tension and mystery to the piece.  The complex changes in the character make for a dramatic, dark plot line.

  • The main character (we’ll call him Fred) suffers the loss of someone important in his life and learns through unlikely or supernatural means that it was caused by someone close.  
  • Fred is conflicted by his loyalty to those close to him and the fact that he also blames them for the tragedy. This gives you plenty of room for contradictory qualities in the character because there is the constant question of madness.  
  • Fred’s desire for revenge, as well as making it public who is responsible, exacerbates his loss of control over his own life and injures others.  And he drops further into madness or perhaps it is all a ruse to flush out the perpetrator.
  • Anger and jealousy are driving forces. 
  • An innocent person suffers, and Fred is so involved in revenge, he considers the injury (mental anguish and later a possible suicide) just collateral damage, which supports the belief that he is going mad.
  • Death is an important feature: death of those important to Fred or who were the cause of the tragedy.  This could be modified to be death of a relationship, death of faith, or death of hope.  But destruction of Fred’s sense of right and fairness is essential.
  • With Hamlet, his efforts to get revenge ended in the death of his mother, his uncle (who killed his father), his girlfriend, her father and brother and Fred himself. 

 The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Narrative Mode ~ #3 Coming of Age

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The Coming of Age format is often used for YA novels because the main character is often a young character, usually on the verge of coming to terms with the difficult realities of life.  It is also not unusual for the main character to be an adult, one with a rather innocent view of life.  A writer can certainly make numerous tweaks to this narrative mode, but below is a fairly standard plot.

  • The young character finds his/her current life is understandable and carries demands that can be managed.  There may be struggles, but these are challenges to be expected and he/she is prepared for them.
  • A sudden event changes everything.  This can come in the form of a death of a parent, the loss of economic stability, grave illness or injury, any major tragedy of which the child (or innocent adult) cannot negotiate easily.
  • This young person has personal strength and a strong sense of self and the rules of his society.  But these beliefs come into questions as he/she works through the rising difficulties.  People he counted on may fall short.  Rules long reliable may lose power.  Places always safe are not.  He/she must revise the solid set of values that have been a part of life for as long as he/she can remember.  Consider Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry has believed and followed the law of slavery.  He views slaves as a subgroup that are appropriately under the control of their slave owners.  As a result when he comes to know an adult slave he has always viewed as lacking intelligence and sensibilities, he must questions these recognized laws.  In fact, as he spends more time with Jim, he finds him a caring man, a substitute father, and unexpected life guide, limited only by opportunity and education. 
  • Negotiation of the often negative demands of the new order become a necessary action of the main character.  In some way, the character must come to terms and establish a new sense of ethics or hold the original ethics as inviolate.  Huck had to make a decision: live by the rules he has always accepted or proceed to break those rules knowing what the consequences will be.  He chooses to view Jim as a human deserving of the same rights he has, and he works to give Jim a chance to acquire those rights through getting him into non-slave territory.  He knows he is working against society and the laws of his group, and he accepts he will be punished for this.  He was guilty of treating Jim as less than human, but he has learned the true value of friendship and promises.  He has come of age.

Well, I am still thinking about what will be next week’s narrative mode.  I’ll let you know then.
The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.