[Stylist] New Again, And Question About Planning and Organizing

[ang345x at gmail.com]

Hello your right shelly. Hey got a suggestion why don't we have a few talks a month instead of 3 times a week? Angela 

-----Original Message-----
From: Stylist <stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Shelley Alongi via Stylist
Sent: Friday, May 8, 2020 5:48 PM
To: Writers' Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Shelley Alongi <alongi.shelley at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Stylist] New Again, And Question About Planning and Organizing

Jim, 

This is how the process of gathering and organizing ideas works for me. I consider myself to be very organized but in my writing I think I am the most loosely constructed especially because my ideas go through so many different arrangements. I mainly right novels because I like to develop stories in some detail. I will usually get an idea and say oh I can make a story out of that. Then I will sit down and write the idea down and just fill in as many details as I can get out of my head. After I get the initial idea I sit down and challenge myself to write anything that comes to mind about the idea and possible stories surrounding the original scene which has been written on paper. Then I realize I need to do some work on this so I start researching in general and then I will think about the idea for a while and leave it alone and let it sit and come back to it . Once I start getting things written down on paper I will read what has been written and then I will start outlining what I have written and see where I need to fill in more details. When I outline the ideas I have written down I usually rearrange them and try to see which events lead up to which events and then Apply techniques to filling out the storyline. It sounds very complicated on paper but it works for my head. Sometimes my best ideas come when I’m working on something else entirely. I may be reading an audiobook in thinking about a story at the same time. I won’t  tell you how many sermons I’ve tuned out in churches as I’m coming up with ideas in my head. So it probably takes me about a year and a half to two years to write a novel because it’s a very slow process for me.
I have a file folder with ideas I have started working on and if I am stuck in a particular place and I think I might have something similar in the file I pull out the idea, combine it with the one I’m working on, and see what happens from there. I know music composers who work like that. It’s called plagiarism of your own work :-)

Shelley, Queen of Bells Out!
President, NFB Writers’ Division 
Editor Slate and Style 
See my self published books at Apple Books, Amazon and Barns and Noble 


> On May 8, 2020, at 6:22 AM, Jim Homme via Stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I was o on the list a long time ago and am back again. I picked up the book “How To Be a Writer,” from Bookshare. Reading the first part of it makes me want to ask the more experienced people here how you capture ideas and organize them. What works for you? 
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Jim
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