Organization

How do you organize your writing and ideas? For the most part, my writing is pretty scattered; I have a binder with some writing in it, several journals with writing in them, and a few spirals and folders, and then there's the stuff shoved in folders on my computer (and more writing that's lying around the house somewhere). Lately I've been trying to categorize my writing based on what is it: a random scene from a story, one of many barely started stories, or a story with an actual beginning of a plot. This seems so unorganized, though. I don't like how my writing isn't all in the same place.

For ideas, though, I've been using Google Notebook. I really like this thing; you can type up notes and organize them into different notebooks, add labels, and click and drag notes to wherever they're supposed to go. I wish I could do this with all of my handwritten work.

So how do you guys organize your writing?

Mine is all hand-written. Since my classes usually don't take up a full notebook, I get an extra divider and stick it into the back. I usually have a few sections of pages: one for each of character maps, storyline, settings, themes, character relationships, etc.
Needless to say, my NaNo is pretty well-detailed.

Well, I attempt to keep my stuff organized, but I fail pretty hard at that. I have Word docs, other word processor files, handwritten notes, files in Google Docs and Buzzword because I can't decide which I prefer to use, all arranged fairly haphazardly and quite prone to being lost. D: Quick quotes or passages, ideas, inspiration, plans... I try to give each type of thing its place, but they don't always end up there and I have about ten different places for everything anyway. I've been trying to keep things in the same folders/general areas, at least, and I've been doing some reorganizing lately. Hell, if random inspiration strikes while I'm doing something else I'll just jot the note down wherever, forget about it and then not be able to find it later because I don't remember what random, totally unrelated file I put it in. I suck at organizing things.

Luckily, I do know where most of what I'll need for my NaNo ideas is, so I'm in the clear for now. We'll see how long it lasts.

I have a folder for all my OpenOffice files and all the stuff off my old laptop. My old stuff's not as interesting though so my .odt folder is all filed:

NANOWRIMO '08
ORIGINAL WRITING
COMPLETED FANFIC
FANFICS YOU'RE NOT PLANNING ON FINISHING
RP APPLICATIONS
OTHER RP CRAP

I'm organised with my writing stuff. :3~ I don't hand-write things though, because then people are more likely to read them.

I organize my files, write notes in margins or in .txt files or (theoretically) Tomboy Notes, and try to keep all of my writing in my blue notebook.

I'm currently developing a schema for this and it will be:

Pokemon Fanfiction
--->Archive (Completed Works)
--->Current Work 1
--->Current Work 2
---> Short Stories
---> Ideas

Ideas Folder
---> Speculative Fiction File
---> OT/journeyfic
---> Short stories

And a separate file if I start developing it, then a subfolder once it has a few files, and then a file in the Pokemon fanfic folder. I'm not sure if I should combine original fiction/other fanfiction with pokemon fanfiction, though if I did that I would keep my pokemon fanfic in its own files and such so that they didn't get too mixed up.

I agree that the comments element in Word is useful, especially when I'm not quite sure where things are going or if I'll understand what I was saying two months from now when I've ignored it for most of that time.

I don't do well with organization. D:

I basically reserve the entire plot in my head and play it over and over again, and I don't need plot charts or stuff like that. I prefer to go freestyle, even though it's a writng no-no. Writer's instinct?

I write things in my head then forget to actually write them down somewhere.

It is not a very good method.

I keep things in my head, because I get more confused if I write it down as notes.

OrangeAipom said:

I keep things in my head, because I get more confused if I write it down as notes.

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Plus, sometimes you lose things when you jot them down. (i think that's what happened with Harry Potter, in fact. xP)

I can do decent description and stuff in my head in the morning when I wake up but then when I get up and try to write it, it...sucks. I don't organize my writing, it just goes everywhere.

Murkrowfeather said:

I don't do well with organization. D:

I basically reserve the entire plot in my head and play it over and over again, and I don't need plot charts or stuff like that. I prefer to go freestyle, even though it's a writng no-no. Writer's instinct?

Click to expand...

Same here. =/