Author Tips: An Update on Using OneNote

It's been over three months since I wrote my blog post about using OneNote to help me organize my research and book details. If you haven't read the first post, you can find it here. 

I thought I would report back with a quick update. At this point, I have finished the second book in my Love's Compass series and I've started a new book. I don't have a title yet, but while it's a stand alone, the main character was introduced in my novel Finding Hope. What does that mean? I now have three books (and at least one more) involving all of the same characters. Having a place where I can keep the many different details together is important. 

OneNote has continued to be a life saver for me. I find I go and look up details on a character, or glance through the current research notes, the most.

I recently found yet another use for it as well. I was editing a chapter in Finding Hope and decided to rewrite much of it. I didn't want to lose the text I had. So I created a new page under Finding Hope in OneNote and copied all of that text there. That way, as I was rewriting the chapter, I could go back and pull bits and pieces from OneNote and incorporate that into the new text. It made the whole thing so much easier! Potentially, I could create a new page for each chapter and write out thoughts and ideas to save for future use. The possibilities are endless! 

Before OneNote, I was jotting everything down in a notebook. Now I have a program that I can pull up on my computer, tablet, or phone and look up any details I need in moments. 

If you've been struggling with how to organize your book notes, give OneNote a try! 

What do you use to help keep your writing details straight? I would love to hear from you!