Hope Is A Stack of Color-Coded Index Cards

Photo of neon colored index cards and a blue pen on a wood desk.

There are neon colored business cards in various piles in my office, which can only mean one thing—Staples was having a good sale. Well, yes, that and also I’ve been outlining a new novel idea. It’s a somewhat complicated book with a few different threads, so thus my colorful cards.

I love outlining new books. There’s so much hope, so much possibility. Trying to get the different scenes/chapters jotted down on cards, helps me to make sense of the tangled ideas in my head. I find the preliminary stages of writing a novel exciting.

This novel that I’m outlining should in no way be confused with the book I am currently working on, or that other one that I walked away from because things just weren’t quite there. The one I’m currently writing is moving along at a pretty steady pace, so that’s good news. The abandoned one? Well, maybe I’ll get back to it some day. I liked the idea. I liked the beginning, but somewhere along the way things got off track, despite my best intentions.

With these two unfinished books out there, do I really have any business outlining a new one? Probably not, but some ideas are loud and refuse to be silenced. So, I interrupt my work-in-progress to scribble my ideas down on brightly colored note cards.

Unlike writing, outlining is something I can do in bits and pieces, whenever I have a spare minute or two, and this past week has been a busy one, with only a spare minute or two here and there. So, maybe that’s why I have returned to this outline, which I actually first started work on a month or so ago.

Life is busy, the news is dark and ugly and the internet continues to be a source of torment, but I can avoid all these things when it’s just me, my thoughts and my stack of neon cards. So, I hope you too are finding time for a spare minute or two (or more) for something that brings you joy.

— Alissa