U is for Uniform

(Post 21 on my WIP)

The uniforms consisted of:
Badged shirt and smart pressed trousers on a hanger for formal occasions including passing out at the end of the year.
Trousers and plain black shirt for most sessions and field shadowing.
Black joggers and grey T-shirt for fitness and combat classes.
10 pairs of black socks
Black trainers and black shoes.
Black pyjamas.
An empty holster.
Jane thought sadly that the only way they could express their individuality would be through bras and pants and they would be completely covered up. They even had guidance on how to wear their hair and make-up. That is there was to be no make-up and hair below the shoulders was to be tied up.
What she was currently wearing was not regulation.

I really wish I could draw better – please don’t snigger too loudly I only had 40 minutes or so to draw this tonight. This is how I imagine Jane could look if she reaches passing out. Badged shirt, hand raised – vowing to uphold her duties as a Time Cop but sneaking in her non-regulation red kitten heels. Jane is really not one to follow rules!

T is for Timeline

(Post 20 on my WIP)

Now I wonder if you’re thinking ‘Hey, this girl’s writing a novel about time travel, surely her T post will be on Time Travel.’ Under normal circumstances you’d be right but I did that last year – so see 2011’s T is for Time Travel post here.

I am writing about something time related though – creating a Timeline. As a pantser who didn’t really do all that much planning I, and my beta readers, have already noticed some issues with the timeline in the draft so I have decided I really need to get this all much much clearer. To me this seems like a huge complicated time-twisting task so I keep putting it off. I did buy a big roll of white paper to try and do this (I may still use it) but this week I found something new that might help. I’ve not had time to do anything except set up an account but still want to share this with you.

http://www.timetoast.com/

TimeToast allows you to make timelines that you can keep private or publish and share. You can view them either in timeline or text view.

I’ve just found a link to a number of Harry Potter timelines (one for each book) and will show the series one below so you get an idea of what I’m aiming for.

Personally I think this is going to be very helpful (even for linearly plotted books) and because I’ll literally be jumping through time in the plot I think this electronic version might be easier to manage than a huge big bit of paper. I hope I don’t open up a time vortex though when I start moving my characters back through time so that there is more than one of them (*holds head and ponders why she ever though time travel was a good idea).

Who else has tried using timelines?

Do you find them helpful?

What format do they normally take?