Journal #2 - Prepping for Camp NANOWRIMO

Alright, so I lied. Obviously, this didn't get out yesterday. Great way to start, right? Only two days in and already missing a deadline. Well, in that case, the bar is set pretty low. Gotta go up from here.

I am trying out a new system for writing. I created a Trello board (Trello is a free web-based task management system) for all the steps I should have in place before writing. It includes all of the elements from the Leviathan worldbuilding tool (you can find that here) and a compiled list of character traits for character development taken from WritingGeekery. As well as a bunch of cards for things that I usually skip to jump right into the writing portion.

Which usually means that have to go back and figure these things out later.

That is the most difficult part for me, making sure that all of the pieces fit together and make sense. Frequently, I will look back on half finished projects from years ago and realize that one of the reasons I ran out of motivation was that I didn't know where the characters were going. I didn't know what I was doing.

The point here is not to convince anyone that this method of organization is best. Hell, I'm not even convinced that this is worth the work. It's just one option to express that anything that helps keep you organized is a good idea.

What sorts of systems do you use for writing organization?