Fill (sorta): Challenge #139

[shivver]

I didn't do much actual writing this weekend, but I did do research. The first bit was on a fic that I've done bits and pieces of work on in the past and caught my attention this weekend. The research wasn't so much research as cleaning up my room to find the notebook in which I'd written my previous research. :) Much of it would have been reproducible from web searches if I hadn't been able to find the notebook, but the notebook also had maps I'd drawn of the important places that I would not have been able to reproduce. But, I did find it! What I need to do is transfer the maps to a drawing app on my iPad, because I won't lose that.

The second bit was real research for a story idea that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. The story has to do with an episode ("Human Nature" / "Family of Blood", actually, which is why my entry last Friday was also about that), but I needed to get a good grasp of the episode's events, so I spent the weekend poring over the transcripts... instead of just watching the bloody episode! (I am such a doofus.) The next step will be to review and collate the extended information that I've already created in my existing stories about that episode (like all of the new characters and events I've created), because I want it to all be in the same space. I also wrote an outline of the story that I want to tell, and of course I want to fill that outline in with all of that information as well.

As you can imagine, don't expect a finished story any time soon. But I'm actually eager to start writing, which is a change from the past, oh, four years or so.

Comments

[lantairvlea]

Research is important! Even if it is just trying to find where you put it. I keep my projects contained in small folders, repurposed day planners, actually. They work great for me. I have tabs to seperate subjects and projects. Maps and some building layouts have been big this last month to be sure I'm keeping things oriented properly.

I prefer editing the physical documents and then transferring to the computer. It works for me, especially since I can't drag my computer around or hole myself up in the office for hours and hours at a time.

Here's a sampling of my messy editing process:


Red X means I've typed it up. I print out, cut, and format the pages when I need to. These pages are 1/4 sheet of 8.5x11" letter sized paper.

In short, glad you found your notebook and that you're excited to write!

[shivver]

It's always fascinating to see how people do things differently. I work in software development and play a lot of computer games, so I'm almost never without either a computer or an iPad with a keyboard. Most of my writing is in Google docs, and notes, well, they're all over the place. Some are in Google docs, others are in Evernote. I like Google docs but Evernote is... not good. So I'm thinking of moving to a different system.

I don't tend to work on paper except for drawings and charts. I did, however, print out the very first novel-sized story I did. It was very gratifying - 85 pages, which I then scribbled out much like yours. I find my editing style is very different between paper and computer. For one thing, on paper, I tend to be more detail-oriented. No idea why.

[lantairvlea]

Being at the computer all the time definitely lends to using it almost exclusively to work and edit. I don't think I've heard of Evernote before, hopefully you're able to find something that works better for you!

Having a physical copy is very gratifying!

Yes, I know I edit differently between the computer and paper. It's nice to circle, arrow, and scrawl in notes. I also find it easier to catch typos on paper than on the screen, my eyes tend to self-edit less, I think. I may have finally ticked over a third of the way editing DotF. I kept adding more pages (a good problem to have!), which kept me at the same percentage of the way through the book with my edits!