Some time ago, I showed what I did to create a Noveling Note, a bullet journal for writers. Since then, I’ve gone through many things — Hobonichi Techo, Midori A5 Grid, Passion Planner, right back to Hobonichi Techo… but part of me wonders, why can I make my own all-in-one notebook that’s geared solely to writers and writers’ needs?
Thus, my current ongoing project, born of Goodnotes! While it may seem like it’ll take longer, I plan to work on this in Goodnotes before creating an Adobe Design version to possibly get it printed.
Paper Size
Paper size is one of the most important decisions to make. I’m still not decided on which size I want.
A4 is what I’m drafting in Goodnotes. It’s large, takes up the entirety of the screen, and lets you put a lot of information on the screen at once. In real life, it is large enough to take up a prominent place on your desk. It wouldn’t be portable, but it would be something lovely that can be an essential part of your desk setup.
A5 is the most common notebook size and one that writers may be used to. It’s portable, but the downside is that the more pages you desire to put into it, the less portable it becomes.
A6 is the most portable size, but it is rather small and those who are used to larger notebooks will not like it. I’m used to using A6 with the Hobonichi Techo, but admittedly I did switch back and forth between the Cousin (A5) and the Techo Original (A6) sizes before settling on the Original size.
The Structure
Every writer has their own technique and style. Some work on one book at a time. Others work on multiple books at a time. I am the latter. Thus, for my first page, I decided to have a Project List that will serve as a backbone/Table of Contents for the remainder of the notebook.
As you can see, I have 11 projects listed, all in various stages of the planning and drafting process. This is meant to be a simple shorthand, be it working titles or a short description of the project.
Project Snapshot
After the Table of Contents comes the Project Snapshot — A quick guide to every project. This is not meant to provide much detail, hence the “snapshot” moniker.
The green paint works well for visual flair on a Goodnotes file, but in real life, it would not be possible. I’m thinking a clean box or something the way Hobonichi Techo does with their “invisible line” that has a line going down the right-hand side that’s a tad bit bolder than the surrounding lines will look nice in print.
This is a highly personal notebook at the moment, so what’s listed is primarily what I need as a writer.
- Genre: What genre is your novel?
- Stage: What part of the process are you in for this project? Fleshing out an idea? Planning? Drafting? Editing?
- Word Count: If this is a project that’s in the planning stages, I will put the ideal word count for the genre here. If it’s drafting or editing, I put the current word count.
- Number of Books: This was a hard category for me to figure out how to word. At first, I thought, “Standalone or Series”. But “series” implies at least 4 books, otherwise it’s a duology or trilogy. But writing out “standalone, duology, trilogy, series” would take up way too much space. So I decided naming the category as number of books would solve the problem numerically!
- Traditional or Indie: This is for hybrid authors, mostly. I imagine they have a good idea of which books they want to pitch to publishers and which ones they want to publish on their own.
- Concept/Comps: This is a very short, one-sentence or ten-word shorthand for the project. For instance, my current drafting work, Embers + Thorns, has “R+J, magick, serial killer, double lives” written.
Next: Conceptualizing the Project
After the snapshot comes the actual Project! Aaaaaaand that is still in the conceptualizing stages so I can’t share here for feedback. What would you include in a noveling note? Is there something I overlooked?