No one will ever dispute that it's a great idea for authors to have a place to jot down notes when something inspiring occurs. It might be a character name, phrase, or story idea. It might happen when you're in bed half asleep, eating dinner at your friend's house, or while watching the news. Over time, this collection can get cluttered, making it impossible to find what you need when you need it. In my case, I accumulated thirteen notebooks, several Word and text files on my computer, and notes taken on my cellphone.
It was time for some spring cleaning and to consolidate all those notes into a single Word document. As of this post, that file has reached 107 pages (18K words), with six more notebooks to sort through.
One nicety of this spring cleaning is reacquainting myself with past ideas and finding real gems along the way to help with current projects. One such gem will help complete Act 3 of Bloodshed (Book 3 of the 11:34 series) and begin Act 1 of Revelation (Book 4 of the 11:34 series).
Another important purpose is to make everything easy to find. It is broken down into chapters and subchapters. A simple search within this single document quickly finds those important tidbits in a pinch. The days of sorting through multiple platforms trying to find something handwritten years ago are over.
So far, I have gathered twenty-three new Test of Mettle ideas. Some are fully developed ideas that trace back to real news events or history, while others are just a line or two. These alone might be enough to create a novella or two. In a way, it was like finding loose change between the couch cushions or a twenty-dollar bill in the wash.
