Keeping it all Straight in My Head (Part 4)

When I tell people how many projects I’m working on, their usual first response is “How do you keep all that straight in your head?”

Simple: I don’t. That’s what technology is for! I use Word, Access, Excel, Visio, OneNote, Notepad, and the Snipping Tool constantly to keep myself organized.

The gallery below has screenshots of a few of my organizational techniques. How about you? How do you keep your writing and artwork organized?

Perilous Jack and the Frost Potion

The Perilous Adventures of Jack the Dragonslayer is a series of Choose Your Own Adventure™-style sprite comics hosted on SmackJeeves.com and featuring sprites ripped from the Final Fantasy™ and Super Mario Brothers™ video games. The stories, characters, settings, and illustrations are mine, but the sprites used to create the illustrations are the work of the talented designers at Square Enix® and Nintendo®.

Perilous Jack and the Frost Potion is Volume One of a five-part series called The Abduction of Princess Vasilisa. In this volume, Perilous Jack returns home from an adventure to discover that Princess Vasilisa has been abducted by a Cloud Giant!

Giant (Fire)

But before he can face the giant, Perilous Jack must fight his way past the guardian of the giant’s castle – a Pyrohydra.

Hydra (Pyro)

But as everyone knows, when you cut off a Hydra’s head, two more grow in its place. Hercules used a torch to seal off the cut necks of the Lernaean Hydra, but that trick won’t work on a creature of flame . . .

Only a Frost Potion can help Jack past the guardian of the castle. And the only Frost Potion for miles is in a monster haunted labyrinth, under the guardianship of the terrible Bull God. A most perilous adventure!

You can read the sprite comic here. When you’re finished, check out the flowchart below (Spoiler Alert!)

Frost Potion Flowchart (Detail)

Flowcharts are practically required if you’re doing a Choose Your Own Adventure™ – style story. There’s no better way to avoid dead ends and illogical loops, plus they look nifty. I did this in Visio.

The full-size flowchart for Perilous Jack and the Frost Potion is here.

Keeping it all Straight in My Head (Part 3)

When I tell people how many projects I’m working on, their usual first response is “How do you keep all that straight in your head?”

Simple: I don’t. That’s what technology is for! I use Word, Access, Excel, Visio, OneNote, Notepad, and the Snipping Tool constantly to keep myself organized.

The gallery below has screenshots of a few of my organizational techniques. How about you? How do you keep your writing and artwork organized?

Keeping it all Straight in My Head (Part 2)

When I tell people how many projects I’m working on, their usual first response is “How do you keep all that straight in your head?”

Simple: I don’t. That’s what technology is for! I use Word, Access, Excel, Visio, OneNote, Notepad, and the Snipping Tool constantly to keep myself organized.

The gallery below has screenshots of a few of my organizational techniques. How about you? How do you keep your writing and artwork organized?

Keeping it all Straight in My Head (Part 1)

When I tell people how many projects I’m working on, their usual first response is “How do you keep all that straight in your head?”

Simple: I don’t. That’s what technology is for! I use Word, Access, Excel, Visio, OneNote, Notepad, and the Snipping Tool constantly to keep myself organized.

The gallery below has screenshots of a few of my organizational techniques. How about you? How do you keep your writing and artwork organized?