Monday Musings -- Ideas and Organization by Hayden West

Happy Monday, all.

I’m Hayden West and I write M/M romance for Twisted E-Publishing. I’ve got the honor this week of sharing a bit with everyone. So here goes. 

I’m a Virgo, I love long walks on the beach…just kidding. *grin* 

I’m always on the look out for story ideas. One of the things I love to do is people watch. I get to create mini scenarios in my head for what is going on in their worlds.

In general, I don’t like large crowds, in fact, I tend to run the other direction when faced with them. However, I will go to parks, ball games, and places like that to people watch. 

Anyway, so I was out at one of the many nearby parks and claimed a spot on one of the benches. It was a dry day which is always a nice thing in the Pacific Northwest.

I watched couples, singles, dog walkers, stroller pushers. But the one that stood out was a little boy who couldn’t have been more than two. If he was that. 

He was moving down the pathway, as little kids do, hard with the diaper on but making progress. He had jeans, black cowboy boots and a faux (I think) leather jacket. The hat he wore was a knit cap with the Batman logo on it, a strap on each side hung down his face.

His grin was a thousand-watt lightbulb. He slowed a bit before me and touched the bottom of one strap and the wings rose up, to look like the cowl. He stood before me, laughing and did it a few more times. Then he ran away toward the middle section of the park where two men waited for him.

I don’t know if they were brothers, in laws, whatever. In my mind they were a couple. One who ignored all the haters, the prejudices, the evil that this world faces and opted to raise their boy in it. A boy who effervesced in his love for life.

I’ve gotten an entire story written for this little boy in my head and I can’t wait to put it down. Okay, so the story isn’t for him directly but for the two men who in my mind are his fathers.

I have a lot of these ideas that I see around and that brings me to another part of writing. Organization.

I know a lot of people utilize Excel, and I will admit, I am starting to use it more, however, it’s definitely not my go to. I also don’t do numerous word documents that get lost in the shuffle. I’ve been using One Note from Microsoft.

To me, this combines the benefits of Word and Excel. Plus, you can add in your previously filled in Excel or Word files. 

So, for example, I have a notebook titled Hayden West for all my stories.

Then I can create a separate tab for each of the stories or series. Similar to Excel, yes, but w/o all the need for formulas and all that. Although it is able to be color customized as you can do with the tabs in Excel. Under each of these tabs, I have pages as well. So, under Mallo Wolves, I have pages for each of the books in that series. Also, a main page for a listing of all the characters and how they’re connected. 

I’m sure some prefer Excel but to me, I like this. If I have an image I want to reference, I can just copy/paste it in there and it will be there along with the link should I want to get back to that specific page I pulled from.

I am still working on how best to use this. I have a notebook with Twitter and blog posts. With those I have an Excel sheet that I can edit in One Note since I’ve imported it into this notebook. And it’s all saved to the cloud, so I can access everything from wherever, even if I don’t have my specific computer. Or Surface.

I also have one for my own life to keep track of where I need to be and what I should be doing. Recipes, to do lists, etc.

Since I am a calendar, organizer, pen freak, I would love hearing what you do for staying organized in your lives. 

A small peek into my life. Scary, isn’t it?

Have a brilliant week.

READ MORE FROM HAYDEN HERE