Just When I Thought This Planner Couldn't Get Any More Messed Up

I swore to myself that I was not going to do another planner post. At least not for a little while. But...

But the first planner from my preorders arrived and I am not happy.

The planner that arrived is the one that's been my everyday planner since 2016. I've complained about it before, tried to move off of it and into another daily planner before, but have always ended up back in it because it has little icons printed on each page to track water, vitamins, meditation, exercise, etc. I love those features!

But among my many issues with this planner, Saturday and Sunday share a page and those are my two busiest days of the week. I actually have to jam two items per line to get it to work for me.

And last year a new hell came into play. They used to print the same day on the same side of the page all the way through. As an example, the Saturday/Sunday combo page was always on the lefthand side. Last year, they didn't do that, and my days were flying around to any side. Did not like. But it was only a couple of months.

And then there was this year's planner. Five months have Saturday/Sunday on the left, and seven months have it on the right.

There have been a number of changes throughout the years that I haven't liked. For example, they keep adding sections below the To Do list side of the page and taking away real estate from my list. They've added all kinds of things that I do not use and do not want like what I'm reading. If I want to list what I'm reading in my planner, I have stickers for that. I need my To Do List section more than I need to record the book I'm reading.

I'd already made plans to try to get myself into a different daily planner for 2025 and now I'm going to try harder. I really do not want to buy this planner again.

I tried stickers in another daily a few years ago when I tried to change, and the bulkiness was an issue. This time around I'm going to try stamps. We'll see how it goes. I might have to abandon the icons and keep track of water some other way. I have ideas.

Happy Halloween!

Oops, The Fix

I've begun transferring my information from the 2024 planner to notebooks. That should actually be notebook, singular, because I'm starting with the Paladin League notes and skipping everything else for now.

It is as slow and as tedious as I feared.

The only good thing, and I use that term loosely, is the series notes I've done so far all apply to the current book, Wicked Ambition, and not books I've already finished.

That isn't going to last much longer. I know there are notes for Wicked Suspicion in there. I just haven't reached them yet.

I'm still berating myself for putting writing notes in this book with every page I transcribe. I know better. This isn't the first time I've done this to myself. I'm hoping it's the last.

I did make my notebook for general story notes. I cutout vinyl on my Silhouette cutter and used transfer tape to put it on the cover and spine of the book.

Front cover in gold metallic vinyl. I might have spent more time debating which color to use, but when I looked at my vinyl stash, there was a small piece of gold left. Enough for title and spine, so I was like, okay decision is made. I don't have to cut into a new vinyl sheet.

If you're a paper/notebook/stationery fiend like I am, the notebook is a B6 size from Sterling Ink, the 520-page gridded version with Tomoe River Paper. Color is Forest Green. I'm not a forest green fan in general, but this one is so dark, it looks black. (No compensation and I paid full price for the notebook. Unsolicited review--I am a serious fan of Sterling Ink's planners and notebooks.)

The spine vinyl required a smaller (and different) typeface. I nearly got it on there completely straight. So close to perfect. So close. But not quite. It's close enough, though, that I think I can live with it.

I calculated lines per page versus how many pages in the book and came up with 13 index pages. With a number that large, I decided to make Index stickers for the top of each page. They're half an inch in height, which gives me room for one grid space before I begin the actual indexing of notes.

I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but each index sticker has a cut edge around it, so I can pull it off like a real sticker. This is actually why I bought this machine--to make my own stickers.

The last issue I face is how to index these odd book ideas that come to me. I mean, how do I list them in an index in a way that makes sense to me, say five years down the road? I'm still debating that. I have more Paladin League notes to get through first, and if I still have no answers, I can move my workshop notes next and save the ideas for last.

This has become a major project. Thank goodness, I only have about 40 pages to deal with. It could have been much, much worse.

Writing Notes and Logistical Nightmares

The planner I've been decorating with vellum had one huge selling feature--the 368 blank pages in the back. As I blogged previously, I wasn't sure what to do with them, but hey, I'd figure it out.

But the one thing I told myself was never, ever put any book notes in this planner/notebook combo. Never.

Not only is it impossible to pull pages out and put them with the book they belong to, it also has a time limit because of the 2024 dating.

So what did I do?

That's right. I put book notes in there. Not just for the Paladin League, but also other ideas that came to me. I put in book title ideas and character names in there. I did writing classes and made notes in the back of the planner. I did other author marketing-type classes (like what your website needs), and put those notes in there, too.

Now here we are. Nearly at the end of 2024 and I have notes in this book that I don't want to lose.

The answer for the Paladin League notes was simple. I have notebooks for this series. I'll just move the notes over there. It's the ideas that might be nothing that I'm not sure what to do with.

This required a consultation with my friends. After much back and forth, an idea was hatched. I would move the writing story idea notes to their own notebook, and to insure it didn't get lost in my office, I would keep it on the shelf directly above my computer.

I also have a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine and I have heaps of adhesive vinyl. I will make a title for the spine of the new notebook and the front cover saying that this is the idea book. Hopefully, these two steps will keep it from getting lost.

And then I needed to move a notebook (blank) from the spot of honor over my computer. There wasn't a good place to put it, so I thought I'll just slip it in my bottom desk drawer. And I found four notebooks with writing notes in them. These are the notebooks that I used to carry in my tote bag all the time and they are also the reason I swore never to put book notes in the 2024 planner.

I didn't actually forget about their existence, but I sure hadn't thought about them in years.

I do remember going through and pulling out all the notes for books I'd finished. I keep finished books in files in my lateral filing cabinet. But as I flipped through, I found notes for books I started, but never finished. Many were for proposals to publishers that my agent pitched (and they didn't sell). Others were for ideas I'd like to write, but never got around to.

Some of these have notebooks already (the ones that went to proposal), and I'll move them over to the right place. The rest will have to be added to the ideas notebook.

How long will it take before I start to feel like a medieval scribe? I am not looking forward to this. Note to self: Do not do this again. Ever.

The Doorknob Dilemma

Believe it or not, I'm not talking about planners or journals today! I bet you're relieved. :-)

A couple of weeks ago, the doorknob fell off my bedroom door. I looked at it, and in my uneducated opinion, it was broken. It seemed as if the metal below the screws had sheared off.

I did try to fix it following advice I received, but it couldn't be fixed because I was right. The metal was broken and there was no way to repair that.

Um, I should maybe mention that despite the fact I had links to videos and text messages explaining what to look for, that I let it sit untouched for about eight days. Yeah. I just didn't feel like dealing with it and I thought it might be hard.

The repairs I tried were not difficult. They just didn't work.

It was time to order a new doorknob.

I looked at Amazon because getting in and out of Home Depot is a bitch where I live, but I also went online and searched Home Depot. They had a brand of doorknob called Kwikset and it was cheaper than what the 'Zon's algorithm had shown me, so I did a search for that brand and looked for a doorknob that bore a resemblance to what I already had.

Next day delivery please. This is a weekend project!

The delivery gods were smiling on me because my doorknob showed up before 1pm! That's super early for Amazon to be in my neighborhood.

The installation gods were smiling on me, too, because I somehow managed to buy the exact doorknob that was on every door in my house. EXACT!

I did have to watch some video on how to install, but overall, it was an easy job. (Thank you, Mr. Blaney!)

My backset came in pieces, and I maybe forgot to put one of them on before I fastened it into the door, but the door opens, closes, and latches correctly, so I'm not going to worry about it.

This was an easy job and I'm glad I could do it myself. Handy Patti for the win!