Series Bible...Amen

As I was strolling through my regular blog reads today, a mention of the series bible on Diana Peterfreund's blog caught my eye and got me thinking (watch out!).

From the start I've felt the need for a series bible to help me keep track of all the Del Rio Bay Clique tid bits, plot points etc... While I have a very thin outline of sorts, it is no way even close to a bible.

At this year's SCBWI Mid-Winter, there was a workshop on Writing The Series. The speaker was Francine Pascal, Queen of the YA series and creator of Sweet Valley High. I and many of the participants, that day, thought Francine was going to talk about the actual writing of series books - techniques, tricks of the trade. Instead, she focused more on writing a proposal for a series and how to sell a series idea to an editor.

It wasn't exactly what we came for, but interesting all the same.

She talked about the importance of a series bible and had her Sweet Valley High bible along for show n' tell. Needless to say, this bad boy was thick!

I really want...no, NEED a series bible. The world of Del Rio Bay has way more details than my head can maintain. From the color of a character's eyes to their general personality traits, a bible should cover A to Z what makes this world and its characters tick.

But I must confess, organizing, filing and listing are my downfall.

Rather than file, I keep things in piles around my desks. To the hubster's utter annoyance!

I have a file cabinet. And there are files in it. But there are also dozens of files around it.

I'm not unorganized. Quite the opposite. But I tend to keep a lot of my details in my head vs. in written format.

I'll start lists and never finish them. Or, I'll write the thought down as it hits me and forget which of my two notebooks I placed it. God forbid it's not in the notebook at all, but on some scrap sheet of paper.

I'm exasperated with myself. I'm so much more organized mentally than I am physically.

A bible is the perfect tool for a Type A creature like myself. But I'm very un-Type A when it comes to getting it done. I'm more likely to pay someone to do this for me, a method someone on Diana's blog mentioned. I really like that idea.

My real weakness, and why I've yet to sit down to create a true series bible, is I become bored with things, quickly.

I outlined the characters of my series, before I ever wrote a sentence. But the book has grown so much since then and I haven't updated that outline, yet.

I've attempted the series bible...but the second I have to do the research (review the manuscript to match details and info) I'm like - Okay, I'll get back to that...I need to do blah, blah, blah right now.

There's always a million other things that need my attention. It's not hard to find something else that legimately requires my immediate action.

So the bible remains a few pages of scattered info about each character with essential meat missing from its skeleton.

Of course, Diana's mention of the bible has pushed me to the guilt phase. That's where I obsess over what I should be doing rather than actually doing the damn thing.

Who knows, maybe I'll get some done this week....except, I have a few edits due on TWISTED.