Organizing my book with Microsoft OneNote

I fired up Microsoft Onenote this morning after I realized I was keeping a lot of files for notes. I had found my self with 3 documents with segments of the book, 2 documents with notes, 2 documents with descriptions of settings, one document was a bit of a journal about the piece and 1 mind map. It was my first contact with the program so I took the time to walk through the tutorial and I am glad I did because I learned a ton and am totally convinced that this is the right way for me to organize a novel in progress.

OneNote allowed me to create a table of contents I could embed all the documents in, On other pages I could build up notes, and in it's own tab I could build the chapters page by page.

Why was this a wild success?

• The thoughts of the book are organized to be seen in a pleasant way that encourages creativity
• I can see a representation of where the chapters will be cutting out many resistance fostering unknowns.
• I wrote my first plot description due to finally being able to see how my elements related to each other. This may not be the final plot but it will definitely help me move forward because I have a direction I can go.
• I also enjoyed that I could draw in one note with my wacom table.

One of the qualities I have liked about this book is that it is alive. It is writing itself more than I am writing it. Organizing it into compartments with Onenote just makes sense in that Onenote allows me to create organic notes as quick as I can think and organize them using an intuitive interface which makes as much sense as a school notebook without the resistance caused by actually having to write and note being able to move things around. I can even draw notes, doodles, storyboards, etc! and all of my hand drawn notes are searchable.

Next part in Ballard - Introducing Tracy

I am enjoying writing these smatterings of story on the blog; I hope it is an interesting format and I will definitely consider requests so please leave comments.

“Tracy, wake up!” said Emily with a panicked tone. My mother will be furious if she finds you napping down her. Tracy pulled her face up from the felt chair in front of her.

“How long was I asleep?” she said groggily as she felt the imprint the fabric had left on her face. Tracy let her eyes adjust to the light and surveyed the old theatre. From this perspective the open theatre with its red chairs and red ceiling looked like a grotesque toothless mouth threatening to chomp down on her at any time; she felt the imprint on her face again and decided that it already tried to while she was asleep.

“I have no idea” explained Tracy “but it had to have been a while for you to get kissed by that chair the way you did. You look like a mess!”

“Thanks” Tracy uttered in an annoyed tone. She felt like her body had been pushed between two rollers and got jammed up somewhere along the way but she did find the will to stand. She did her best to fix her long, tangled, black hair but as usual nothing she did seemed to help so she threw it behind her as one long stream of tangled curls.

“You have to get out of here!” yelled Emily. “My mom will be home soon and if she finds you here I will end up looking worse than you."

“Listen here you little bitch” Tracy said through clenched teeth “Don’t think for a second I care what your Mom does to you and don't forget, you owe me”

Defeated, Emily shifted her gaze to the ground and shuffled her feet, she couldn’t win against Tracy this time but on the bright side, at least she didn’t have to deal with Ballard today.

Experiences with Writing Ballard

It is nice to finally be regularly writing something whether this piece will end up a book or not is a good question but not one that I feel that I need to answer right now. The purpose of writing Ballard is to flex my creative muscles by writing something creating.

What has my experience given me:

• It is shown me that the story is already in my head, I just have to write it.
• That there aren't any rules to how I have to write this thing.
• That I enjoy sharing bits of it as I go, almost like interactive fiction.

I will continue to work on Ballard and maybe eventually make some progress on Cooking with Scissors.

Tracy Describes Ballard

Tracy describes Ballard:

Ballard stands tall, I am not going to state an exact height because that is meaningless to your perspective, instead I am going to describe him as tall. He is taller then you but not as tall as the tallest person you know. He dresses flashier then you but in a tasteful way that denotes his confidence. I have often catch him staring into space and wonder what great thoughts could be important enough to capture his attention for that long. I hate him and will see him dead some day.

Have I been writing?

Have I been writing?
no
Is this true? Absolutely not! but it is my first answer. Why? If I told anyone who knows me well that I haven't been writing they would disagree with me right away. They would say, "What do you mean you aren't writing?", and would be probably wave there hands up in frustration as they said it. They would continue with, "you have been writing regularly in your blogs, your journals, your e-mails, and who knows what else but you say you aren't writing! why on earth would you say something as ridiculous as that?"
"Because I am not", would be my quick answer but the truth is sometimes I feel like I am not. Is this true? no, it comes from my lack of confidence, faith in my self, and lack of knowledge in what I really want. It comes from resistance, and the idea that in order to be happy I need to be working on my book, which I haven't been but why?
Without thinking about it I would say that it is a writers block or I have have been procrastinating because of fear of the unknown, critisism, self expression, self awareness etc but all of that is bull.
It is because I don't have clear next actions set, I don't have structures in place to make working on my book automatic as I do for my blogs, journals, e-mails etc so it is time. Ballard (my main character in my current novel) is being added to my !daily list. The goal will be to write at least 1 sentence about Ballard or about his activity.

How often do I journal?

I keep 3 journals right now. I write these as notes to tasks on www.rememberthemilk.com

• Gratitude
  Here I list up to 5 things that I am grateful for either that day or the day before depending on if i do it in the evening or the morning. I find this helpful in that it gives me a perspective on my life that things that I wasn't grateful for in the past I wouldn't live without now.
  
• Daily affirmation
  This is my daily congratulation to myself for what I will accomplish. I note here how awesome I feel for the accomplishments that will happen.
• Habit Journal
  this is my record of how I am doing building do habits. This is to encourage me to improve my life, one habit at a time.

Journals I have written in the past include:

• Meaning
  What is meaning? What I have I done to create meaning, what will I do to create meaning? This journal which I keep off and on (Put it aside for a while when I get numb to it) is a detail about how I feel about meaning and what meaning is.
• Purpose
  What is my purpose? How do I define purpose?
  This is one I will be relaunching soon to explorer the purpose statement I developed before.
  
• Daily Record
  This is one I have done off and on but not because it goes numb. I have procrastinated and argued with this journal since I discovered it. I did not have my !daily list last time I kept a daily record. I will add it to !daily right now. The first entries will consist of defining the purpose of the journal.
  

A new excerpt - A near trip into the void.

It felt good to get a small bit of writing done tonight. Just a clip of something new but it is interesting to me so I will write into it every onece in a while.

Ballard opened the wooden door to the study hoping to see the one he would ultimately marry but unfortunately it was bare. Bare wasn’t the word, as it was gone; completely absent from the world, from the universe. He looked out upon a blank slate as if the world were erased leaving nothing but blank canvas. Canvas might not have been the best word as this area of space where the study of the Acrocia mansion was, was now completely empty, he looked out thorough the doorway to a barren field of white as if he was looking out through a portal into another world.

He closed his eyes and prepared to step into the void when he felt a hand upon his shoulder. “Ballard old boy!” the voice exclaimed. Ballard opened his eyes only to see the view of the study before him, him with one foot in the entryway and one foot into what was...nothing. He shook his head around only to see the jolly mustachioed grin of Elden Acrocia.

“Ballard it is good to see you!” exclaimed Elden. “Are you here to see Emily?”
Ballard, still jostled by his experience with the nothingness he was about to step into merely nodded and grunted a “uhhuh”. Emily was the reason he came here, the only reason he would ever come to this place.

“Well I am sorry my friend but she is not here. She hasn’t been here for a few days.” Said Elden

“What!?”, said Ballard “not here?, that’s impossible I left her here yesterday!”
Elden wrinkled his brow in frustration, “That can’t be my friend, she is visiting her brother and has been absent from the estate since Tuesday. If you like I can ring her for you.”

Ballard shook his head, if this is the case he wouldn’t want anyone to think he was losing it. “Well I must be thinking of last week, the late nights I have been working are taking their toll on me I guess.”

“Well you are always welcome to use the guest bed my friend, will you be staying?”

“No, not tonight Elden I will have to pass, much to do as usual.” Ballard shook Elden’s hand and left to his car.

The warrior artist

Picture a medieval battle with two armies facing each other in a valley. One army, the red army is small, made up of about 100 archers and the other side, the blue army has 1000 fighting men. The sides don't seem evenly matched. If the archers want to win the battle they have to let loose thousands upon thousands of arrows. An individual arrow may be blocked by a shield, deflected by armor, or it may miss entirely. If the arrows come down like rain they will hit home and the battle will be won. 

Art whether it is writing, painting, photography, sculpting, music, dance, is similar. If art is created fierce, often, fearlessly, and without fail it is more likely to succeed. 

Does that mean that any artist can create thousands of works and they are guaranteed to strike it rich on one of them?

No. 

If the archer's in the red army were unskilled, untrained, undisciplined, and ill equipped the arrows wouldn't leave the bows. When a soldier is not fighting, he/she is training.

Because it takes:
• Discipline
• Dedication
• Courage
• Skill
• Proper Equipment

 Art works the same way; you require continued dedication to honing your skills, building confidence, obtaining the proper equipment, and continuing the art that you love! If the artist maintains the discipline of the warrior and practices his medium as a lifelong path, they have succeeded.  
Brian Darnell
darnellster@gmail.com
http://12hourhalfday.blogspot.com
http://www.unvoicedvisions.com
follow me on twitter - http://www.twitter.com/12hourhalfday

Excerpt 01 *gulp* 10-30-2002

Here is an excerpt from the mind of the main character in the novel I have been writing.

Something other than the vague consciousness given to us is destined for us. We are fated for more in this universe of uncreativity, uncertainty, indecisiveness...no, that's not it, let me start over.

I wake up in the morning and think to myself,

"Will I accomplish something today? Learn something? Create? teach? Feel? See? know? achieve? will I?"

I think about a time when life was about... well, skip that. I am not in a mood for great wisdom right now. I will share that another time.