“I don’t always write ‘brainwave’ story ideas down. I keep a lot in the recesses of my memory, and I bet a huge percentage of it leaks out to be gone forever. But then, the bits I retain are probably the worthwhile ones.”

I pray this is the case with me, Juliet.  I like to let things stew a bit before taking the bite.  I worry that something wonderful will disappear, but I guess there’s nothing that can be done about it.

Eric and LJ, I’ll be contacting you two soon. I think amplification is necessary on how you manage your idea/research files.

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What I like about it is that it’s like a set of little index cards that you can tag and search. I did a workshop on using a wiki to organize a novel for last year’s PBWriters LB&LI. You can find the wiki on my website–free to any good homes. :) I call it ‘tiddlywikiwrite’.

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I don’t always write ‘brainwave’ story ideas down. I keep a lot in the recesses of my memory, and I bet a huge percentage of it leaks out to be gone forever. But then, the bits I retain are probably the worthwhile ones.

When I do jot things down I’m the queen of the messy post-it note, back of shopping list, and blank half-page of ancient notebook. And they get filed on the kitchen bench along with bills, financial statements etc. Unfortunately, I have a little dog whose reaction to being ‘abandoned’ whenever I leave the house is to shred paper. And she’s recently discovered that if I forget to push the chairs in, she can get up on the bench / table.

So I should transfer everything to the computer. I probably won’t do it, though. Old habits die hard.

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I usually enter the notes into Mind Manager or whatever I’m using to “track” the scenes I’m writing. If they’re just raw idea notes, I put them in Google Notebook.

Handwritten notes go in the Moleskine -> Google Notebook or Mind Manager, depending on whether they’re specific to a story in the works or not.

I have enough problems with bills, old pay stubs, and junk mail piling up around my house. I can’t imagine having piles of papers related to my stories. That’d just be too much!

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I used to carry that journal with me everywhere and I probably will again when I get immersed in my story. It’s getting into the habit of taking it with you that is hard to do – but boy, does it save a lot of time when I’m trying to figure out where I put a particular note!

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I also rarely file raw research anymore. I try to cull down what it was about the things I researched I liked the most, and create a list of notes consisting of those elements. Rather than just piles of article clippings or random things — I probably won’t remember exactly what I loved about them.

We’re funny creatures that way.

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I have notes all over pieces of paper. I have lists with names and ages and ideas about secondary characters.

I’m glad to see that it can end. I’m going to text-message my characters and see if they text back! ;)

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No, I’m worse!

Do you have a surefire way of filing your research?

I do find my way from chaos to organization by using manila folders for each of the major story chunks. This one for info on the keris, this one for twin behavior, this one for Castine, this for Rome, etc… But things usually only find their way into folders after I’ve used them in the story. Until then, mass chaos.

How do you deal with your blips of inspiration — post-its?

Like you, I use anything and everything. Post-its, random scraps of paper, napkins. But you know what I like best? Hubby purchased a SONY IC Recorder for me, for my last birthday, and I use it constantly. It’s the perfect thing to put in a purse or pocket, so you can keep track of inspirations while driving, unloading dishes (!), etc… I lurve it and highly recommend it for writers.

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