The writer's journal

As an author of spanking fiction, I have found the most useful tool to assist me in writing is my writer's journal.

It is a devise used by writers of all genres, so I cannot claim it is my own unique idea - just one that is worthy of sharing.

My "journal" is simply a document folder on my word processor.   Usually that folder has one document per piece of work in progress.

The reason for having a journal is that our muses very rarely deliver complete manuscripts to our minds and we simply transcribe the thoughts into printed words.   Sometimes that happens:  it is rare, but two or three times I have sat down at my keyboard with virtually an entire tale ready and only needing to be transcribed.

But is far more likely that you get your pieces of inspiration in dribs and drabs.   A single sentence of dialogue for example, such as "If you move from that position, I shall really hurt you."   And that's it.   No context, no character, nothing.  A tempting morsel, so many possible different meanings, which needs to be chewed over slowly.

And that is where the journal comes into play,    If the drib belongs to a specific work in progress,  it can be jotted down in the appropriate document.   If the drab has no logical home, then it can go in some sort of "General" document, so that it can be retrieved when the home for it is finally identified.

Just reading a work in progress documents can result in a nudge to add some more bits and pieces.   Until you have enough to do the first write.   (We shall talk about rewrites some other time).

I find it useful - for me - to put new stuff in a journal in red text.   When perusing a document, those red ones stand out as being the newest (and most likely to trigger new avenues of thought).   Before adding any fresh items, I select the whole document and change the font to black.   Then make any new addition(s) in red.   And a periodic review of everything in the journal folder has been known to get one or two tales from outline to first draft in fairly short order/

The 40,000 word novel "The Gleam in Her Eye", about to hit the stands, started as single line of dialogue.   So the method sure works for me.    And if you do not have a writer's journal, you might like to try one for a while.   Nothing ventured, and all that.