Joseph Jarrett

I am one of the most OCD-style people I know. I like things to be organized a certain way; my towels must be folded in the style I like or I’ll flip. It shouldn’t come as a shock when I tell you that I treat my writing the same way. My ideas and manuscripts are things I am just as conscious of as my towels, baskets, and such. They deserve to be treated that way. If I can be materialistic and particular about tangible items, I should be doing the same with the thoughts and stories I come up with.

            As I’ve told you before, most of what I wrote in Mishaps & Mistakes stems from journals I kept growing up and into adulthood. These journal entries were all formatted identically. I wrote the entry number in that specific journal, and I wrote the date at the top next to that. After I had my title, for a lack of better words, I spilled my guts out onto those thin pages in whatever way I needed to. There was no right or wrong way to get my emotions and opinions out. Journaling is messy like that, and that’s why I love it so much. That’s why it served as such a good foundation for my story.

            But my journals and Mishaps & Mistakes are not the only things I ever think about. I was probably about twelve years old when I realized that I was actually pretty creative and could craft a story in my head fairly easily. Back then, I had no set system, but some sense of formatting. I wrote out everything and anything that came to mind surrounding one particular plotline. It started with a summary of what I imagined, then character descriptions, and what I wanted each of their endings to look like. Even today, I still operate in a similar fashion when developing a new story. Around this phase of life, I also got a lot of my ideas from dreams I had. Who knew my unconscious mind was so artistic?

            Nowadays, most of my ideas are kept on my laptop or an external hard drive. If the idea comes to me late at night, I’ll type it as quickly as I can in my notes app before I force myself back to sleep. I had an incident some years back that prompted me to purchase the external hard drive. My high school laptop, that housed over thirty film scripts I wrote and book ideas, crashed out and couldn’t be repaired. I lost everything. All of my work from ages fourteen to eighteen was gone in an instant. I was devastated at the loss of my art, but there was nothing more I could do. I vowed to never be that risky again.

            On my current laptop, I keep separate folders based off what kind of material the file is. I told you that I like organization, so everything has to have a proper compartment. These folders give me a little ease of mind, and also help to keep focus on what part of the creative process I am in. Here’s a little sneak peek as to what those folders look like!

            I would show you the contents of some of these folders, but I wouldn’t want to spoil any possible surprises for you! Those are for another time. Maybe you’ll see something soon, though.

            What do you with your ideas? Where do you keep them? Maybe I can learn something from your methods!