Last Father’s Day, my daughter got me a great gift – pens! Multiple-colored retractable ball-point pens. Why? Because I’m a writer, that’s why.

Never mind that most of my writing is done on the computer – these pens are great! Because even though I don’t do any real writing longhand, I do almost all of my plotting that way.

And, ever since last Father’s Day, in multiple colors.

Character development? Each character gets their own color.

Plot point brainstorm? Rotate through the pens.

Is this really necessary? No, not at all.

Does it help? Er, probably not.

But, man is it FUN!

This morning, I got my revisions saved, attached, and sent off into the ether. So during my lunch break, I dug the colored pens out of storage, dusted off my notebook, and made three very colorful pages of notes, writing down the ideas that have been coming fast and furious ever since my muse decided the revisions were done and it was time to move on to the next story.

Hooray for COLOR!