Prewriting: Step 1 - Finding a Color

Since I’ll be spending so much of November working on my NaNoWriMo project, I thought I’d show you a bit of my prewriting process.  This is what I did during October.  This post is about separating the story from all the others.

I’ve written several novels.  When I first started, it was easy for me to keep track.  There was just one.  But then I started the second one.  I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to throw anything away.  So when I had binders for two books, I had a hard time finding the right one.  And it was harder to switch from one to the other.  That’s where the Color Coordination comes in.

Each novel I write has a different color.  It helps me separate each one.  I’m able to jump into the story without having to figure out where I am.  And each color almost automatically helps me to work on multiple stories at the same time.  I also have a hard time coming up with titles, so they go by the name “The Red Story” or “The Blue Story” until I can come up with something suitable.

So when I know I’m going to start a new story, I have to find a new color.  And let me tell you, it’s getting harder to find the cheaper binders because I’ve used most of the colors already.  But fortunately, as I was preparing, it was the beginning of a new school year, which meant that there were a lot more school supplies. 

I decided on yellow for Rowell’s story.  There were yellow binders along with yellow notebooks.  And it felt right.  That’s something I always work towards as well.

So here’s what I start out with.  Like the NaNoWriMo sticker on the front?