The importance of the right sticker

I'm getting organized for the next book. As some of you know, when I work on a book I keep a small notebook (5x7) of thoughts, ideas, pictures, etc.

The next book requires a bit of research, so I'll have 2 nb for it, one for the 'hard' research and the other for snippets of dialog, thoughts, ideas, etc.

I always buy cheap notebooks at Michael's or Target and decorate them with stickers that indicate what I think will be the theme of the book: family, trust, honesty, fear etc. I also use stickers to indicate where it's occurring: on a trip, in farm country, in a city, on a construction job, etc. It's amazing what kinds of stickers you can find.

I got my Research NB all stickered up okay then I started writing in my Other NB before stickering it. Then I went back and stickered it and decided I just didn't like the look. The cover was too busy -- not from stickers but from the original cover design.

{sigh}

I'd invested some time in getting the NB set up with info in it, so I couldn't abandon it. So I got out some background mattes (sticky pages, essentially), covered up what was there and re-stickered the front.

MUCH better. I felt very good about it.

At this point I realized I was working off superstition and had a good laugh at myself, but I'm telling you, the right stickers make all the difference in attitude. And that's what's needed when starting a new WIP -- you've got to get the attitude right.

So now it's Onward with a freshly stickered book. I still need to do some creative brainstorming before I'm ready to write, but figure in a week or two you'll start getting info about the next project.

All stickered up and ready to go.