I’ve been asked this question a few times so I thought I would write a post about it.  I believe that I am horribly disorganized by nature, and because of this I have to work extra hard to organize projects that I am going to be spending any serious amount of time and effort on.

Regarding writing specifically, what usually happens is that I will be on one of my walks, or possibly driving, and an idea will pop into my head.  The seed for a novel.  I’ll continue walking and let the idea form and play-out in my mind and sit back and watch where it goes.  After it reaches a certain point, and my life circumstances are right for taking on a new novel in earnest, I will write out scenes (by character) on 3″x5″ cards.  Once I’ve written out all the scenes (that I can think of at that time), I will purchase some “butcher paper” (it’s sold under different names) and cover my entire kitchen table with it.  (You may have seen the picture on my Instagram.)  Using the huge piece of butcher paper I will make a graph with the characters as one axis and story beats as the other.  I’ll then fill-in each “square” of the graph.  This has been helpful/surprising to me because it forces me to think of where & what other characters are doing that may not be along the main story arc.  Once I’ve filled that out, I may repeat the process using different story-beat structures to see if anything surprising pops-out.  Using this “plot outline”, I will then write a “scene summary” in a notebook, noting the characters, location, sensory queues, motivations, conflicts, emotional direction, and descriptions.

Making sure I am stocked with plenty of Red Bull and playing my heavy metal Spotify playlist at 125db, I will take the chronologically organized (for the most part) notebook, sit my butt down every day (at least I try) and write the novel in Scrivener.

If there’s interest I may write a follow-up post sharing my process and opinions on drafts, editing, readers and soliciting feedback.