Tip Tuesday: Pen and Paper

Paper and Pen are your friends

Years ago at work a productivity expert came and gave my department a presentation. He talked about lost time. He talked about all the time we spend waiting.

We wait for meetings to start at work. We wait for out spouses to get ready to go out. We have extra time in our lunch hour.

I write down a lot of bullet lists:

• Character physical traits
• Plot ideas
• Scene settings
• Random artifacts
• Character and place names
• Maps and floor plans
• Outlines of plots
• Personality traits
• Random thoughts 

All of these kind of lists are written in a notebook by hand. I use 3-hole-punched notebooks like the one on the photo.  It allows me to take these notes and organize in a tabbed, three ring binder.

I like these kind of pages better than a journal style book because I can organize and find things later, much easier.

I also use an app on my phone called Evernote. This is a cloud based annotation tool that lets you take quick notes, dictation, photos,links and other stuff. It is then available on your phone, tablet or PC.

--I use paper and pen a lot. All my stories start there.