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Yesterday, I had a Twitter conversation about organization when it comes to writing–specifically organization of world building information. This is when I sadly confessed that my organizational skills leave something to be desired. I try, but well, this is what my system currently looks like:

1. A folder inside my email for any notes I email to myself or to my writing buddies about my stories. I store them for future reference, but never seem to remember I have them and so almost never look.

2. A folder inside my word processing program’s folder. This is for any notes from Instant Messenger or stuff I type up in WordPerfect or Word or WordPad or any other handy program. I sometimes remember to look at the IM conversations.

3. A folder inside the My Pictures folder in Windows. This is for pictures of my characters, their houses, clothes, cars, and any websites that I save. I frequently have this folder open, and when I’m on a stretch run, I’ll click over to look at it. I even have the character pictures up on a personal website so that I can open it up when I’m away from home if I have Internet access.

4. Bookmarks of websites for research. Some are on del.icio.us, some are on my computer, some are on Google Bookmarks because that’s the only one I have on the toolbar of my desktop computer. I usually remember that I have bookmarks on my computer, but remembering that I saved something elsewhere is hit or miss.

5. A notebook or notepad filled with writing. When I first start a book, I get out my notepad and brainstorm. The information is in a free flow kind of form and it’s difficult to find what I’m looking for sometimes. I hate to take the time to rewrite and organize the notes because it feels like a waste, but probably that would save more time than it takes to keep paging through to find a piece of info.

6. A file folder (a real paper one) carefully labeled with the names of the characters. I even bought a label maker so that I have really pretty looking folders. Most of them are pretty empty until I get stuff back from the copy editors who type up these beautiful lists of information in alphabetical order by category. I HEART my copy editors. I wish I had my own personal copy editor to organize me while I was writing.

I have actually tried about a half a dozen programs to organize all my information in one place, but I never take the time to learn how to use them and most aren’t intuitive enough to learn by doing. I suppose if I kept at it, I could pick it up, but when I’m writing on deadline, I don’t want to take the time so it’s back to my old data in 6 locations method. My memory might be lousy when it comes to life stuff, but so far it’s pretty good when it comes to my books–at least the recent ones. :-O

This weekend’s movie was Hancock starring Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron. I’m going to try not to give any spoilers, but I can’t promise something won’t accidentally slip in, so if you plan to see this movie and don’t want anything given away, stop reading here.

Will Smith stars as Hancock, an alcoholic superhero who’s lost public esteem. He saves the day, but he causes so much damage to property, that no one is sure they want him to come to the rescue. To make things even worse, he’s surly to people, lowering their opinions of him even farther. And then he rescues Public Relations guru RayEmbry (Jason Bateman ) from the path of an oncoming train. Ray invites Hancock home for dinner, introduces him to his wife and son, and offers to put together a PR campaign to redeem his image. Hancock doesn’t agree immediately, but comes around.

I’m going to leave the plot description there because it would ruin the movie if I went any farther.

To start, I love Will Smith and Jason Bateman. I didn’t recognize Jason Bateman and only realized it was him when the final credits rolled, but oh, well. I’d heard good things about the movie and that’s why I put it in myNetflix queue, but everyone called it a comedy. It wasn’t. Not exactly.

And this was my big problem with the movie. The first half is a comedy, then somewhere along the way, it makes a hard turn into drama. The premise is pure comedy, the setup with the first mission after a group of bad guys is comedy, and the idea of a PR guy trying to redeem the image of a drunken superhero is comedy. If the movie had remained a comedy, it would have worked.

The second half was interesting, too, but it was a drama. Hancock learns things about his past that he didn’t know and the audience learns as well. There’s action and a final push by a group of bad guys to get him. If the movie had been set up and executed throughout as a drama, it would have worked.

But piecing together these two styles into one movie did not work for me. The film felt unfocused, as if the writer wasn’t sure which direction he wanted to go. Or as if two different writers split the duties, one writing the first half, the other the second. The lack of cohesiveness wasn’t only startling, it also prevented the script from exploring either idea fully and that left me feeling cheated as a viewer. If they’d focused on the comedy and the redemption of Hancock, that would have been satisfying. It also would have been satisfying to have the movie unfold as a drama where Hancock learns the truth about himself. As it was, both ideas felt half done and I can’t help but wonder what they could have done if they’d focused on one direction.

The first half was fun, the second half was interesting, but the two parts didn’t fit together.

My rating: 3 stars

I’ve lamented my writing process more than once. My characters tell me their names. They tell me about their pasts. They refuse to move forward in a book if I do something they don’t want to do. On and on it goes.

Mostly, I don’t mind. At least not any more. I used to really wish I could pick the names of the characters until I had one that let me. I hated it. Maybe I got spoiled, but it was torturous trying to find this heroine’s name without her telling me straight out or hinting at it at least. I hope I never have to choose another one again! It’s just so much easier when I hear “Mika” and can go from there.

The thing about process is that mine always drives me nuts–until I hear someone else’s process and I think, “thank God that’s not me!” LOL. This is one of those cases where the grass is usually not greener after all. At least not for me.

I heard second hand that another writer said that she tells her characters exactly what to do and they do it. There are no surprises. That was definitely a thank-God-that-isn’t-me moment. Hey, the fun of writing is the surprises. If my characters did what I wanted..well, why bother then? The only reasons I write involve 1. finding out what happens. 2. Watching the characters change and grow. 3. Discovering something new while I’m writing the book and having things that didn’t make sense before, but that I dutifully wrote down, suddenly make complete sense. If I didn’t have that, I’d just read other people’s books. It’s much easier that way.

But that’s her process and it works for her. Before I say one more thing, let me stress writers should write whichever way works for them. Period, full stop. I’ve yet to meet anyone who writes exactly like anyone else and you can twist yourself into a pretzel trying.

When I was a teenager, all the books I found at the library were written by plotters. I couldn’t write that way and I tried. I even bought the 3 x 5 cards. After a while, I realized this had sucked all the joy away for me. Sadly, I realized I’d never be an author because I didn’t write like one. I decided to choose joy over conformity and resigned myself to never being a real author. It wasn’t until much, much later that I learned that I’m not the only one who writes the way I do. There are other people who aren’t plotters. The joy was amazing.

But this is also why I always, always tell people to do it their way and don’t worry about anyone else. Because while the author I mentioned whose method leaves me baffled and thinking why bother to write, would probably look at my method and be appalled. But that’s because my way wouldn’t work for her. That’s okay. We don’t have to write alike. Heck, I rarely write two consecutive books the same way!

There are other authors who write a first draft of their book in weeks. That sounded great to me until I found out that it’s only bare bones and they go back and flesh it out later. I can’t do that either. Once I tell a story, I’m done. I can go back and do revisions to it, but those usually aren’t too huge. I could never go back and flesh out a skeleton–I’d be too ready to move on to the next project. Again, different methods. Neither one is right or wrong.

I could go on like this for a while, but the bottom line is my process might be me trying to keep up with my characters who have the control. While I do try to improve the way I do things all the time, I also realize that I like my process better than anyoneelse’s. Good thing, I guess since I’m stuck with it.

Sorry if I wasn’t as focused as I should be. I am hugely tired tonight.