Author's Note in my journals

In many journals, when I need to take a step back and look at my writing with an objective eye, I will title 'Author's Note'.

Initially penning these feels completely self-indulgence. But when I don't read these 'notes' for a while, it's when I realize the gem of understanding about why I wrote it in the first place.

Here is an example. Written on July 27, 2011:
There are too many personal stories to be told. Everyone has a story to tell: a private history(lesson). This book may take 3 books, I'll see.
Look at that: I always said 'Stacey's Story' would be only one book, + I was right. If I only focused on her. But once I began revealing Slash's story too, then the floodgates opened, + everyone needed to tell their story.
-End of journal entry

Time Is Of the Essence

Graduation is fast approaching. My graduation.
Goals are being made.
I am outlining and taking this novel to the next level and pushing to try new things with writing.

Now it's November and getting down to the wire! So many things due: annotations, creative portions, 25-page essay, and the feedback and research that one accumulates in a semester...

I have so many questions for myself and what I might try to do.

Evernote(r) is an app that can cross platforms for simple note-taking, rigorous note-taking, research-gathering, posting images, recording and clipping web articles. It is such a handy app that I had to download it to both net book and desktop.

Unless you have used it, you have no idea how helpful it's been since a student at my campus told me about it!

I can't count when I was pressed for time (what with the job and looking into extra-income opportunities) and how, with only my cellphone, I hurriedly typed out an entry, bookmarked and clipped a webpage for research, or recorded a reminder (Ok. I only did that once, but it doesn't mean I won't continue it into a habit).

Had to turn in some more deadline PDFs... Ay, and I'm still working on the novel. While taking time to catch up on personal reading, I try to remind myself to always have time for other creative projects.

Here's to hoping to catch up and keep up! *Whew*!

Characters determine your story. You have no say.

Ay yi yi! The research for this novel is kicking my butt! While I tackle with this, I will also post current reference titles (Don't worry, they're doozies and humdingers!).

Lest one thinks this will interrupt my flow of new sketches, fear not, for I have more art to upload.
I noticed, however, that it was a good decision to edit my sketches (means removing the notes to myself - explaining character quirks, physical attributes, etc.) before uploading.

This has become a blessing in disguise as I realize names have changed, even which offspring will be whose in the making of this story.

I thought I had a set amount of children born to the different characters. Now, just as in real life, we cannot determine how many kids will make a family. Even this story is changing that presumption.

So, thankfully, when I upload more pics, you will notice there are no names or explanations, except, of course, what I place in the captions.

*Chortling* Anyone who tells you 'It's your story, you can do whatever you want with it' clearly isn't a writer!

Note to self

Organized my documents solely for this novel and realized that all three needed to be renamed.
I also began to highlight the side notes and footnotes within each document.

This is the second draft.

I'm doing first draft and second draft at the same time.
When I counted, the grand total came to 74 typed pages from over 1,600 (Yes, you read right) handwritten pages.

I'm about to shed tears.