I found this binder in a storage bin when I was cleaning out old stuff from the basement a few months ago. I was going to toss it, but it was basically brand new because I don’t think I used it in college for longer than my first month. The fact that I still had a binder I got for college-- 17 years ago-- isn’t too surprising because I don’t like to toss anything that could potentially be useful. Yesterday I decided to print out my previous draft of book 1 and edit it that way, so this was the perfect place to keep it! Unfortunately I’d doodled on the cover, but that was an easy fix after buying pretty holographic tape- which I didn’t realize matched the notebook I’m using for notes for this draft until I got home from the store. (I have so so many notebooks it's hard to keep track.) Then I added lots of fun stickers and pretty tape because heck yeah.

I’d been putting off editing book 1 (my supposed main NaNo project) this month because I wasn’t really sure how since I’ve never before got a novel to the point where a draft wasn’t a complete rewrite/story change. I finally worked it out. I’m going to go at this the way I do outlining and early drafts, with everything color coded. The thought of editing this in red pen freaks me out because red pen says “I made a horrible mistake” and my dyslexia says “good luck trying to decipher anything if it’s all the same color” so instead I’m going to use blue for notes about Adair, green for Blythe, red for Dray, and pink for Rosalie since they’re my POV characters. The other colors will be for notes in general or about other characters, and I’m either going to use black pen or the dark blue for writing in line changes verses just notes.

Equipped with a plan and colorful office supplies, I now feel like I can take this mess of a book on and maybe actually succeed at the I Have No Idea What I’m Doing draft. Hooray!

~Meri