HOW I KEEP ALL THIS STRAIGHT

People sometimes ask me how I come up with my ideas, or how I keep them all straight. The full answer is a mess of word documents, smartphone notes, mental contexts and .txt files. 

The short answer is my desk. Not the desk itself--the paper i staple on top of the desk. Here's the one from my last project, a revision of Daughter of Flood and Fury:

My brain is too chaotic to always write in straight lines, or keep a definitive and updated wiki of any particular world I'm creating (see: the 200+ page wiki for The Resonant Saga, forever being edited and added to). To help with that, I staple a giant piece of paper to my desk and scribble all over it. Not all of it ends up in the book, or even about the book, really, but it helps me get it all in one place where I can stare at it. And draw on it.
 
It always feels auspicious when I tear off a sheet and start another one, at some indefinable moment when the new project has become too big to fit in just words. That's what I did today, as I get to the end of planning the sequel to Beggar's Rebellion, tentatively titled Pauper's Empire: 

I like it so far. Yes, those are planets and orbits on the right, though it's a fantasy novel. I'm sure this one will end up as stained and wrinkled as the other by the time I'm done--because food, tea, and decaf coffee also help me keep all of this straight. If you read really close, maybe you can find spoilers...