A.L. Heard

It’s no secret that I like keeping journals. I do one every year where I keep track of my reading. In the past when I’ve done writing challenges like NaNo, I’ve used a journal to track my writing progress. At work, I use them for to-do lists and to plot things out on paper before making digital versions.

I also use notebooks for my writing projects. In the past, I’ve used them to outline story ideas or collect names for characters or to write out timelines. In the past year or so, as I transition more from stand alone books to writing series, I’ve put aside notebooks for each series as a sort of “bible” for info I’d otherwise loose track of. Here’s a look at my notebooks for my two current projects.

The Trade Deadline Verse

I wrote The Trade Deadline as a standalone story, though I knew I wanted to continue writing hockey romances set in an NHL world. I didn’t have any other plot bunnies at the time, but I assumed I’d want to continue in that same world and so grabbed a notebook and kept more notes than usual for Ryan and Lars. This has since become my “hockey” notebook, where I tab out each book and keep notes.

I’ve been keeping track of player profiles, team rosters, ideas for upcoming stories, my editing and publishing progress, etc. There are post-its with extra details, printouts of social media posts, reminders about nicknames for players and their careers. All the stuff I have to sometimes double check when I edit or when I want to reference old characters in a new book.

Each book has its own section, mostly with character profiles, roster info, and large sections with editing notes. Since the books share a world, there are some pages in the back with league info too.

I still have a bajillion pages left, so I’ll be able to update it with new stories and characters as I go! Since this is the “hockey notebook,” it’ll also get the short stories like Vampires Don’t Play Hockey and my xmas story for this year and my Valentine’s Day story for next year.

The Shadow Queen Verse

This notebook is a bit more complicated, since there’s way more worldbuilding involved. Since this is a five book series that’s much more tightly connected than the hockey stories I’m working on (which could be read as standalone novels with the occasional cameo from other characters): the groundwork laid in book one needs to be solid so the rest of the series makes sense.

There are a lot of prophecies, characters, and locations to keep track of. The royal family has four children, with an age gap of 22 years between the oldest and youngest siblings. I’m constantly checking my notes and map to make sure I have everything in the right sequence, spelled correctly, 
Here are some of the highlights (that aren’t too spoilery 😉)

It was also a lot messier when I started. I love handwriting notes, but as I worked through Book One, a lot of things changed. I started with a very messy map and made adjustments to it as I went. I had the main character names and locations down, but kept having to add more as minor characters popped up or as they referenced places elsewhere in the world. Once I finished Book One, I went back and cleaned things up. Here are some of the before/after pictures to show what it used to look like.

Do pages ever get ripped out?

Yep! Sometimes pages need to be taken out because they’re no longer useful OR they’re in the wrong spot – this marks a spot where I’d put spelling/editing notes that made sense at the end of my Trade Deadline section at the time, but since I’ll need it for every book, it got moved to the end of the notebook.

And sometimes old stuff just gets covered up with post-it notes, or sequestered with binder clips (this section was handwritten chapters that have since been typed up).

Do I ever type any of this info?

I do! I have digital copies of some of the info (especially things that ended up as social media posts). This is especially useful when I’m maybe jotting things down on my phone and don’t have my notebooks handy, or if I need to share the info with beta readers, editors, typesetters, cover artists, etc.

And then there are things that are just too complicated to write out, or that have too many pieces and I need the flexibility of a digital format. The big one I can think of is my timeline for The Trade Deadline Verse. I made a spreadsheet that helps me keep track of how long characters have been in the league (Anders is currently my oldest, Evan my youngest), what teams they’ve played for (Anders and Dylan are my only two likely to retire for the same team that drafted them, Ryan has played for the most teams 🥲), awards they’ve won (lot of Rocket Richards in this bunch…), and which team won the Stanley Cup each year (that one has a lot of blanks lol). It’s definitely a WIP and not something I can easily share until the entire series is done. But it exists!

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

A.L. Heard