Organization is Paramount

Readers see only the words on the printed page or screen. They have no idea of all the words that pile up to get those particular words in front of them. While some people think writers pull their ideas and words only out of their heads, most writing requires research—and lots of it—as well as draft upon draft. All this research and drafts must be kept in order to keep any writer from going insane.

To be a success as a writer, you have to be organized. Have you ever been in someone’s office and all the desks are buried in piles of paper? While those who work in that office most likely know what’s what, any new employee or some hired to take over while another is out sick may find the whole mess daunting. Without organization, production slows or even worse ceases.

When computers first came on the scene, manufacturers said they would lead to a paperless society. Obviously, they didn’t mean writers. In fact, that really hasn’t happened and probably never will. There are some things that just can’t be digitized.

If you haven’t done so already, you need to get organized. Many writers wait until a slow period to do this, but somehow that slow period never seems to materialize, so they just keep piling new material on top of old. Sooner or later, it’s almost impossible to find anything.

Back in the day—whenever that was—people used filing cabinets. But unless you have endless space, they’re only a temporary solution, good for newer material at best. So where do you put your archives. Big businesses have large warehouses in which they store their archive files. Or the hire another company whose business is storage to do that for them. Oh, but you say that today most of your files are electronic and you can use the Cloud. That’s all fine and dandy for computer files, but you can’t store any paper on the Cloud.

Manila folders have long been the basis for a business’s filing system. They worked back in the day and they work today. You should create a file folder for every writing project. For those projects that are big, like books, you’ll need multiple file folders and eventually a file box to store them in.

When writing a book, for example, you should create a separate file folder for each chapter, plus extra ones for appendices and the general concept and outline. You could place all your research notes for each chapter in the chapter’s folder or you could use additional folders to store them.In the end, you’ll amass a good amount of material, some of which you may want to use again.

Each article and book chapter should also have corresponding computer files—several for research, one for the rough draft, and successive additional ones for revisions and rewrites, each numbered in succeeding order.

In addition to all your writing files, you may also have a well-organized library of several hundred books. While you may use most of these for reference in researching your work. But you may also keep books you’ve read and might read again.

Go to any office supply store or search them online and you’ll discover a myriad of items designed to help you get organized. Stackable trays, for instance, look like they would be good to get clutter off your desk. But in fact they can produce more clutter. While you may plan to use them for sorting current material, they tend to get clogged up, so you’ll need to periodically  clean them out.

It’s also a good idea to keep everything you use most often closest to your desk. This can be article folders, notes, a scheduling book, etc. You may also want to keep a calendar with automatic reminder alerts on your computer. Paper calendars can’t remind you of a deadline or appointment with a sound or by flashing on a screen. If you use a smartphone, you can even set up the reminders in your phone.

To read more of my articles and book excerpts, please visit my Web site. And to read more articles on freelance writing, grammar, and marketing, go to Writer's Corner.

Recycling Isn't Just for the Trashman

Recycling isn’t limited to plastics and tin cans. It can play a big part in your writing, too.  Over the years, you’ll gather a lot of information. Too many writers use that information once because many of their teachers drummed the concept of not repeating into their heads. So they use an idea once and forget about it. In the writing biz, that’s not the way to make money.

Information should be a valuable commodity to you as a writer. Whether you write non-fiction or fiction, you can use ideas and the information you gathered to flush them out over and over again. Your files are a gold mine. So if you’re one of those people who can’t stand clutter and throws everything out as soon as you’re done with it, you better think again.

So what are some of the ways you can mine all those ideas and valuable information you have on hand? First, let’s look at the facts—just the facts. If you write non-fiction, you gather a truckload of facts for every article and if you write books, a boatload. That’s a lot of facts to let go to waste. So how do you know where they are when you need them? The answer is a good filing system.

Every article or story you write should have its own folder, both paper and digital. You should put all the notes and clippings and such into the paper folder. Reserve the digital folder for information you find online and for drafts of your piece. The idea of going all digital may be nice, but it isn’t practical. If you don’t have a way of retrieving the information you’ve stored, then you might as well have thrown it out.

For some topics, you may want to create several folders of information, subdividing a more complex topic into categories for easier retrieval. Information you gather for one subject or project may often be used for another on a similar one or a different one altogether. For example, let’s say you’re writing an article about pioneers traveling on the Oregon Trail. First, you’ll gather information about the Trail, itself, then you’ll begin to find information on the people who traveled it.

The information on the former can be used to not only tell the tale of the Oregon Trail when it was at its peak, but also about the remnants of the Trail in the present day. Information gathered about the latter can be used for stories about courage along the trail or articles about particular people or the lifestyle of the early settlers of the West. Right there, you have the material to write any number of stories and articles all based on the same research.

So much for the information you have on hand. But what about all those pieces you’ve already wrote and published? Taking pieces from different articles, for instance, can give you a whole new piece. With some rewriting and revising, you can craft another interesting piece without doing any more research.

And don’t forget about sidebars. Sidebars to one article can become short articles in themselves, especially if you do some quick rewriting to help them stand on their own.

Storing all that information can become a problem. Over your writing career, you’ll gather reference books, clippings, brochures, maps—you name it—and that’s not even considering all the notes you’ve taken on various subjects. But if you organize the material for easy access, you’ll be able to produce a variety of pieces for many different markets during your career.

Getting Organized

When computers first came on the scene, manufacturers said they would lead to a paperless society. Obviously, they didn’t mean writers. Even though I’ve been using a computer for my work since 1989, to look at my files, you’d never know it. That’s because writing of any sort–except perhaps poetry–requires some degree of research. So to keep from going insane, I had to get organized.

At first, I used manila envelopes that I rescued from mailings. Into these I placed brochures, notes, etc. on various topics, then stacked them on their longer sides on shelves with the topic lettered on the at the bottom. After these filled several shelves, I switched to a filing cabinet. Now six filing cabinets later, I ran out of room. Sure, I periodically go through the material, but it still piles up.

Ordinary manila folders became the basis for my filing system. Every article I write–to date about 4,000–has a corresponding file folder containing an brief outline, research notes, and any other pertinent information about that topic. When writing a book, I use a separate file folder for each chapter, plus extra ones for appendices and the general concept and outline.

Each article and book chapter also has corresponding computer files–several for research, one for the rough draft, and successive additional ones for revisions and rewrites, each numbered in succeeding order.

In addition to all the writing files, I also have a well-organized library of several hundred books. Most of these I use for reference in researching my work. When I’m working on a book, I place all the books I’m using to research it on one nearby small table, making it easy to go back and find a specific reference.

My office also contains several stackable trays that I had planned to use for sorting current material. Unfortunately, other folders and such tend to clog them up, so I periodically have to clean them out.

It’s also a good idea to keep everything you use most often closest to your desk. This can be article folders, notes, a scheduling book, etc. And, yes, I also keep a calendar with automatic reminder alerts on my computer.

To organize my current writing project folders, I use two plastic former record album racks. The folders stack nicely into them, allowing me to finger through them to find what I want. To keep different types of writing projects separated, I use sheets of cardboard, cut higher than a file folder, then paste a large label with type of writing project across the top. These allow me to place folders between them, keeping everything organized. I have folders divisions for Assignments, Columns, Courses and Lectures, Web Site Updates, and Writing Out. As I finish a project, its folder gets filed in that last category. Every six months or so, I take all those folders and file them in the appropriate box or filing cabinet.

NOTE: I’ll discuss specifics about some of the organizational methods above in future blogs. Stay tuned.