I just took a quick look at my title and thought hmm...that sounds familiar. It probably has something to do with the fact that I am going to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower this weekend. In any case I know all about those perks but the ones I really want to talk about are the perks of being organized.
I have always considered myself a fairly organized person but when it comes to this series it is like my organizational tendencies have become stronger than ever. Before I even started work on the first book last year I gave myself a week to organize my notes and my thoughts around those notes instead of jumping right in to the writing process. As I've said previously, this process might have had something to do with my fear of starting this project but the rest simply had to do with the fact that I like order and I like everything to be up to my standards.
I am a total perfectionist which has been the hardest thing to overcome in writing this series because a lot of the time I get caught up in making something perfect right away and in the process all I do is stress myself out. Even now as I look at the picture of the Book Board I made today (I'll get to that in part two) the fact that the colors are out of order kind of makes me a little crazy, but I digress. Through the past year, I have had to find my own way of organization for the Falling Series. Some things worked and other things didn't. I'm not sure how other people tackle this arduous process but for me, I had to discover that I was a visual learner and to keep this in the back of my head at all times.
What does this mean? Well, for me, this means that I need to see things planned out, sketched, written, and plotted to fully understand them. Until then, it is just a bunch of weird scenes or images that flash through my head. I started with a binder, THE Binder. Without it I'm not sure how successful I would be at trying to tell my story. After the Binder, came the Notebook and after the Notebook was filled then came the Box. I have been using these tools for the past year but upon starting the second book, I added two more things to my organizational arsenal. I have created a bigger map of Wonderland to use for reference and proper plotting (with color coded post-its of course) and just today I finished my Book Board which is kind of what prompted me to write all of this down. Moving on to the actual perks of being organized. For me the perks of being organized have happened at the most unexpected times. During my day to day writing process I can usually remember specific things that are pertinent to the chapters I am working on. But occasionally, (as I have found with starting the second book) I have to introduce things that I know will be important later on. This is where the biggest perk of being organized comes into play. Because I have basically plotted out the big things in the series it is nice to know that if I need to reference something such as the Red Queen's bracelet, because it will become important in the fifth book, I can go to that section in the Binder and reference how it looks to use in the first book so that later on the reader will understand it. While this is the most important perk I have found, there are others. For one, people don't think I am a hoarder and that is because I cleverly hide all the evidence in color coded tab dividers and fancy boxes. Another perk would be the convenience of knowing I have everything I need in one place so if I ever need to move my home office (my couch) with me it is fairly easy to do. Check out The Perks of Being Organized--part two to see exactly how my arsenal of organization works.
To Be Continued...
xoxo
K.K.