I'm Really Going to Get Organized This Time

I made my deadline for the revision of A Stitch in Crime. Thanks to being able to email it, I was able to work on it up until almost the last minute. My editor needed it Monday, and I sent it Sunday night with hours to spare. I know organization was supposed to be last weeks topic and I don’t remember if there was a special topic for this week.

I sort of zoned out once I sent off the revision. But now I am interested in getting organized - at least to get rid of the papers that are everywhere left from the revision. I still prefer reading a hard copy and so had printed up the version of my manuscript my editor sent. I’m hoping to get my work room a little organized before I begin on book 5. I have already started gathering magazine articles, newspaper pieces and pictures from magazines that have things related to what I’m going to be writing about. I like to hang them on a foam board, so I can look at them while I work.

I want to try another form of organizing. I have always had good intentions with my crochet projects, but somehow I keep ending up with loose post it notes with information about something I was making with no idea what it was or where the project is. I also tend to write notes on the fly in one of many, many soft cover Moleskine notebooks I have. I love these notebooks. They come three in a pack and have black or tan paper covers. I found them once on a trip to Napa at the Coppola Winery. They were in the gift shop along with some black pencils and were touted as favorites of Francis Ford Coppola. It was love at first writing, but at that time I couldn’t find them any place else. So when they started turning up in stores, I was so excited to be able to get them, I just bought a package whether I needed them right then or not. Then I worried they’d stop making them, so I had another reason to keep loading up. I’m embarrassed to admit how many unopened packages of notebooks I have on the shelf behind me.

They are great to tuck in a purse or crochet bag. The only problem is, they all look the same, so I remember I wrote something down in one of the notebooks, but which one?

So, my big plan is to take the big hard covered Moleskin notebook I have and make it a project notebook. The first entry will be for the crocheted cactus plant I want to make as gift for someone. I found a couple of patterns, but none are quite what I have in mind, so I’m going to have to create my own pattern. What I want to do is keep track of everything in this notebook. Even the attempts that don’t work. Ideally, I’d like to put a photo of the finished product - assuming there is one. I want to note what kind of yarn and hooks I try and which ones I like.

I’d like to do the same thing for everything I make from now on. I have already foreseen a problem. What if I start on the cactus and am keeping notes, but then set it aside for awhile and start making a scarf. Where do I start the notes for the scarf? I could leave blank pages for the rest of the cactus notes, but how many? Uh oh. Besides there’s a good chance that before I finished the cactus plant or the scarf, I’d have several more projects going. Oh, dear, I haven’t even taken the plastic off the notebook and I’m already sure it’s going to end up a mess with notes in the margin in tiny writing that I can’t read because I ran out of space.

Okay, even though I’ve already almost talked myself out of the project notebook, I’m going to try anyway. And if succeed with the cactus, I’ll put a photo in my next week’s blog.