Writers tools — them little sticky tabs

I remember when Post-it came out with those little sticky tabs. Like the ones you see sticking out of my notebook above. When I saw them, I thought, who could ever possibly keep track of those little things on their desk? I pretty much ignored the sticky tabs for the next ten years or so, but I’ve recently found a use for them. So what follows is a post about a tool that can be useful for a certain sort of scrivener.

I usually do first drafts by hand, especially for fiction. Lately, I’ve been kind of all over the place with what I’m working on. At least, that’s how it seems. I’ve been writing a lot this year and this notebook with its tabs illustrates it. Though it also shows that I’ve maintained a moderate amount of focus from one project to another.

When I write by hand, eventually, I got back and type up whatever I have written. At least, in an ideal world that’s what I do. A lot of times I struggle with flipping around the pages and finding out where the next part starts. Also, when it takes me so long to finish a story that takes place over so many “sittings,” I often have to look back to check on details that I have already laid down in the history of the story. It really helps to only have to look at the sections that deal with the story and not whatever random babble I’ve scrawled about who knows what in between.

So I’ve found that these little tabs help. Each color of tabs that you can see on there represents a different story I’ve worked on. The lonely yellow tab is for that novella that’s supposedly my number one interest right now. The red tabs represent a short story I wrote from April to May (haven’t typed it yet) and the blue tabs represent another short story that only has a sitting or two left in it.

Every time there is a tab it means that there are at least a few pages in there where I’ve written about something else entirely. I’ve gone off on enough of a tangent that I needed another tab to help me quickly find the spot where it picks up again.

If I keep writing at the present rate, I’d say this notebook has another month of life in it, and its going to be yellow tabs from about where you see it to the end. Fatman is coming back, big! I’ve finally found a reason to go the extra mile to keep track of the little post-it tabs. Now, if they could only find a machine that will type these things up for me!*

* Just kidding. Typing it up is the first phase of the rewriting process, so I have to do it. Major bummer.