Over the last month or so, I’ve been writing down ideas and thoughts for the next season in whatever place I had handy. Last week, I went through and organized all of my notes into several google documents for easy access. I wrote the first script and idea-ized the next 12-15. I put together a list of interview questions and over the weekend figured out how I’d like to proceed with that.
So, I thought I’d share some of the tools I used to make putting all these thoughts together a little easier.
1) Notebooks. I used whatever notebook I had handy, the first batch of notes I put in my Carpe Diem journal of happiness, and the second batch I wrote in my art journal because I had that with me.
2) Task management. I’ve been alpha-testing a task management and time keeper tool called tasktend. It’s much easier for me to use than google to-do lists, or to-doist because the interface is better and more straight forward. There’s an easy way to delete and close tasks and you can drag the ones that you want to do that day on to your “plate” and you have have multiple projects/lists for specific tasks. For example, I have a KieryGeek list for my preproduction tasks, a Bruce Roberts list for all the integration and things I need to setup before winter – and when I want to know what I should work on for the day, I’ll move items into my plate to keep it organized – but I can also track the tasks within my project if I don’t feel like moving it out. It’s seamless and easy and epic, but it’s not out yet – so I’d suggest finding a tool that works for your work-flow-style until it’s eventually released.
3) Google Docs. I use google docs to keep the tentatively finished ideas and information accessible and shareable. I have one for interviews and how I plan on setting them up, I have one for general ideas and direction, and I have another that is basically an episode map. I tried to use the questionnaire template but that didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Currently, I’m just using the plain doc format.
I decided to write out 13 episodes at once – well 13 episode ideas at once, so I get a sense of what I’m going to need shot wise and I have more flexibility for re-arranging things. I can also line up some episodes to correlate to upcoming events, like The Hobbit.
4) Calendar. I have a repeating event in iCal (synced with my google calendar) occurring every other Friday for several reasons. First, I can go and count the episodes and figure out which day the 4th or 10th episode is going to take place on. Secondly, I can use that information to make sure that I cover anything interesting happening within that two week time frame, and lastly, so I remember to stay on schedule and actually release the episodes.
One of the more helpful things I did, and decided early on, was to come up with a tag – one sentence that basically summed up the direction of the show that would also help keep me focused when I needed inspiration.
KieryGeek: Your bi-weekly fix for interesting bits of geekery, gaming, and fangirl-gasm-ing.
I wanted to mix the phrases fangirl and fangasm into one verb, because it seemed to be both more accurate, and more fun.
