Using Notebooks
There is no one way for using a notebook. It depends on you as an individual and your own needs and preferences. It depends on what you want to use it for, and what you want to get out of it.
So first of all, what do you want?
Do you want something portable that you can take out and about with you? Yes? Then A5 might suit you better. You want something big? A4
What do you want to use it for? Jotting down ideas or planning?
Jotting
By jotting I mean using inspiration from around you to make short snippets of writing that you may use. I also mean for jotting down ideas you get that you don’t want to forget and anything like that. So, an idea strikes you? GRAB YOUR NOTEBOOK!
- What you could put in it:
- To-do lists (writing schedule etc)
- Ideas from surroundings
- Dialogue or scenes that hit you
- Things you need to research
This may mean you write a certain scene that you suddenly get inspiration for, or a piece of dialogue. It may even be a description of your surroundings. Jotting is just anything really, any idea or thought that you don’t want to forget.
With jotting you are gathering ideas which may be used at a later date in one of your stories or may even be the inspiration for the start of a new story.
How to organise
However you want! You could date or title entries so you can find easier, you might want to number the pages or even make a contents. Whatever works for you!
Planning
Planning your novel! There is so many things to think about and having it all in one place makes life much easier.
- What you might have in your planning notebook
- Plot outline
- Character profiles and/or sketches
- Mindmapping ideas
- Timelines
- Research notes
Now how you plan your novel is your choice, I personally prefer to plan on paper. I always start by mind mapping my idea, with characters names and the basics of what needs to happen in my story. Then I like to do character profiles, starting with the basics and then moving on to creating a background for them and starting with my character development. This changes when I begin to actually write, but I like to have a starting place. I talk about timelines a lot but that’s because I love to use them. Seeing where everything happens in correlation to each other helps me come up with more plot points and keeps me adding more and more details to my basic idea. I never write full chapters when I’m planning, but I do bullet point what I want to happen in each chapter.
How to organise?
I do a contents page and organise it that way. I personally think planning notebooks are much easier to navigate than jotting notebooks but I like to number pages to make life easier.
In conclusion
Your notebook can be anything you want it to be. There is no right or wrong way. And there is nothing to say you can’t have several different notebooks, each with a different purpose.It’s whatever works for you and whatever you need. Plan, jot notes, sketches, doodles. It doesn’t matter- it’s yours to do what you want!
-S
Character Education Plan for the Year
I believe that one of the main goals of education is to, along with the parents help, guide the development of good character. My plan for the school year is to focus on an important characteristic each month.
The characteristics are:
September- Respect February- Empathy
October- Responsibility March- Trustworthiness
November- Bullying April- Citizenship
December- Caring May- Honesty
January- Fairness June- Perseverance
Each month, we will focus on what the characteristic means, read books demonstrating that characteristic, and notice when our classmates are acting with character.
Each student will also be asked to find a book, article, picture, video or something of their choice that demonstrates to them the characteristic we are focusing on that month. They will share this with the class what their choice is, and how it relates to that characteristic. This a very casual sharing and I would ask that there is something that can be left behind to show what the item was so we can display it on our bulletin board. If it is a book, photocopy would be great or if it is a Youtube video a print out of the title or screenshot would work.
Here is a letter that I would send home to the parents.
This is a mockup of what the bulletin board in my classroom would look like.
This is a Character Slip that would be by the bulletin board in the classroom. When a student demonstrated the character trait that we are focusing on, another student that noticed that the act will fill out a slip and place it somewhere under “Examples of how our class shows this characteristic.”
So.
There was mention a while back about steampunk dwarves, and faejilly just reminded me of it more recently. It was always on my “to-do” list, since being mentioned, but I realised that I have a lot of research to do for it.
Here’s my question: I’m starting the brainstorming and plotting stage of the writing, and I know a bunch of people on here are passionate and well-versed about the DA dwarves. Would any of you care to send some resources (though I am already perusing the Wiki) my way, or plot ideas that you think would lend well to a steampunk setting?
No promises on starting the actual writing any time soon, as I would like to finish Bonds of Blood first, at least, but I would like to see something written, for sure! Any and all suggestions and help is pretty much welcome at this point!
