I discovered a new method of outlining my story: DIGITAL STICKY NOTES. There’s a website called miro.com that I’ve been using, though I’m sure there’s tons of other similar ones. Because my ambition – however futile – is to make an episodic series of comics, I wanted an easy way to outline my “season.” I tried doing it in a simple word doc, but it became a bit too cumbersome to scroll up and down through the document. And because I’ve never done the Sticky Note Method before, digital made sense so I can edit and play around with what system I like best without wasting paper/time.

Below is a very blurry example of my system:

So normally on the left I’d have my “ideas” sticky notes, where I plop random scenes that I know I want in there at some point, but have no where to put them. I forgot to add that to this fake example I made, and I don’t feel like reuploading the image, so please feel free to use your MiNd’S eYe. Anyway, my “ideas” section keeps the thoughts alive without me having to worry about changing my wholeass story to make them work. As far as the actual episode: each sticky note is it’s own scene, and the colored tabs are the characters in each scene. I also have different shapes for settings, random story notes, stuff like that. Then, of course, that’s just one “episode” – I’ll have a whole line of them for each season. 

This process is subject to change, but it hasn’t failed me yet! “Yet” as in, the two days I’ve been doing this.

My goal is to get the season outline done by Friday – or at least the first draft of it. Once the story is in place, I’ll start the script writing. I keep going back and forth on tone – do I want it to be like a Network TV kind of sitcom? Or maybe more like FX style sitcoms? I’m kind of thinking the latter – something like Always Sunny or What We Do In The Shadows. I also love Community. Basically, I want it Weird and Dark and filled to the brim with Kind Of Shitty People. That’s the goal.

So: what I should be focused on is outlining my season storyline for my comic.

What I’m actually focused on: REPLACING EVERY PART OF MY KITCHEN. I’ve been reading about how terrible plastic utensils and nonstick cookware is. Guess what our kitchen is entirely made up of? And look, it’s probably fine to keep it as is. But we’ve also had this stuff forever, a lot of it doesn’t work as well as it once did. It’s time. And yet… the amount of money it would cost to replace everything is… upsetting. So we’re going to start with a few things:

-A stainless steel pan
-A cast iron pan
-A stainless steel stock pot
-Metal utensils

We have a few nonstick stuff that we can just keep and replace eventually, but overall I think it’s a good start. Also: I would like a salad spinner. And so, I’m going to Bed, Bath and Beyond today to spend most of my coins. Then I’ll go home, and spend the rest of my coins on stainless steel stuff that I need to order online. And then hopefully this hyperfixation can end and I can get back to the important thing: my made up story about ghosts.