![[sticky entry]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/sticky_entry.png){kind=small}
Glad to have you here, whether you read, write or both!
Please check out my profile to learn about me. And now, on to the posts! :D
Time To Get Organized
Mar. 17th, 2021 05:29 pm
So when we last left our heroine, she was trying to get organized. HA! If you knew me, you'd laugh, too. :) Nevertheless, if I can do it, you can do it--I promise. Having said that, you've seen my desk, right?
I'm not going to put you through that horror again--so instead let's look at my writing files.
Everyone has their own preferences about where they store stuff online. For me, it's Google. I use it everywhere and it's easy to get to on all my devices. However, I know there are other options out there. So you do you and maybe something I say here will help improve things.
For the past few years, though, I've had a bad habit of not organizing my Google Docs inside my Google Drive, and when I needed to find something just used the Search feature--which didn't work as often as it worked. Ugh.
But now I was on a mission--so I'd need to really get serious, because once this was done I wasn't going to waste another second trying to find something!
I quickly Google-searched (see what I did there?--ha!) how to organize my Google Drive and guess what? Not only can you create folders you can color code them. Be still my heart! :D Now, things were going to get fun!
Ok, if at this point you're shaking your head at me let me just remind you I am a writer. We frequently are so focused on whatever we're creating that real life doesn't matter until it rises up and slaps us in the face--so give me a break, ok?
Anyway--so the process of creating folders, color coding them and dragging or moving my docs into them was very therapeutic--I am an organized person at heart, I've just convinced myself over the years that I don't have time to organize. Finally realizing the importance of making time was a real eye-opener, and ever since I've done so, fitting writing into my very busy work life has been exponentially easier.
What kind of folders did I create?
I made one for my novel in progress, one for my fan fiction and one for my blog posts, with subfolders inside them for things like work in progress, characters, freewriting idea snippets, research, scenes.
Any reference material I wanted to see when I first open the folder I left as a separate document with no folder of its own. For me, these are things such as The Three Acts, my latest writer's group submission needing corrections, and the freewriting idea I'm working through at the moment.
This is probably a good time to mention that I tend to write in a very cinematographic process, where scenes often come to me out of sequence. I write them as they come to me and work out later where and how they fit in--hence the "scenes" folder.
I also made a separate folder for writing deadlines and tracking, to have a place to record where my current projects are in their development and any other projects I have waiting in the wings.
Next, my goal was to look at what I had previously organized in Scrivener. Oh, you don't know about Scrivener? Well, here's a link.
I looked around at a lot of different writing software types before I chose this one--and I mostly use it to organize my research. I like to have pictures of how things might look in my stories--locations, items and even characters--to reference as I write. Sometimes if I'm somewhere that makes me think about my story I'll snap a quick pic. But I also save links to articles and just all kinds of things that I might want to go back to later.
The question may arise at this point: why have Scrivener when I'm using Google Docs? Sadly, Scrivener doesn't have a web based version--so I can only access it from my computer. It does back up (by my choice) in the cloud, in case of a crash. And I am slowly moving research I have saved in the cloud over to it to have everything in once place. ;) The process of syncing Scrivener with Google Drive is so laborious it's faster if I do everything manually. But I like everything else Scrivener does so much it's worth the effort to me.
I can record voice notes with my phone and send a transcription text file to be imported, or drag and drop a relevant audio file into Scrivener if I so choose. ;)
I created templates for each character and setting in my current book, and can add details as they occur to me. I google searched some likely pictures of locations and saved the ones I like. Sometimes I see the characters being played by certain actors I like, and use them as character photos. The templates contain details of the characters' lives and motivations--just anything I think would be important to give them more depth.
The Research and Notes section contains everything from info on typical character types that give me a starting point to research on specific things for the project--such as life in a circus, for one section of the book. Since my novel is a contemporary crime story, I have a section also containing Clues and Evidence. One of my characters is obsessed with the sixties, so I have an entire section on that--because I was only ten in 1969.
No, really, I was. :: glares at you ::
And, yes, there's even a section for my actual manuscript. But I have to confess that this software (as most are) is huge and can be overwhelming to learn. In the interest of organization, though, I decided to take a class and learn every detail of it. Here's the one I found and it's awesome!
Gwen Hernandez Classes
So as long as I don't get too wrapped up in research and notes I should be fine. And these will be great things to work on when I am having an off day, creatively.
SO--now I should be able to find everything, right??
What organization system do you use? I'd love to know!
Next time--let's talk about writer's groups, pros and cons. :)
The Way Back
Feb. 24th, 2021 08:31 amIt’s amazing to think that after all these years as a writer, I suddenly had to re-think the process. But there it is. Because I’d lost it--or the desire and joy of writing seemed lost, and that feels just the same. So I google-searched tips for writers with writer’s block and some best books to try and get out of this hole of feeling like writing was an obligation.
So...life has been a struggle for a while. It doesn’t make it any better that I chose this. I have had periods of less challenge with my life, of course--and during those times my creativity has surged and produced and fulfilled me and I've felt joy.
Soon, I realized that I could put something that has haunted me for years to good use--my insomnia--to help with keeping my writing schedule. Probably not in the way you’re imagining, though. See, I’m a morning person. As I age, I also don’t often sleep for more than six hours at a time--sometimes even less. About noon, though, my energy flags, decision fatigue kicks in and I need a nap--which I generally do now about every day. Even after that, though, my willpower is gone.
SO I started doing my planning, exercising, and writing early, early, early. We’re talking 3 a.m. early. Because that’s when I wake up naturally, now.
I have spent years trying to learn the magic secret of staying asleep longer, but guess what? I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to get up and write--after a couple of cups of coffee, thank you. The best part is: no one else is awake to distract me at that time!
Next, I chose three projects to work on each week. My current novel gets four days, my fanfiction two days, and this blog one. This combination of projects is a nice mix for me since my novel is the most complicated project, my fanfic is just relaxing and my blog is a place where I can let out some of my thinking processes and, hopefully, help someone else.
At this point, I realized I might not have what most people think of as “writer’s block”. The section of my novel where I’d gotten stuck was a very dark place--no one would want to go there. But I remembered Stephen King--one of my heroes--writing about a scene in his novel The Shining
that was so scary that even though he knew what was going to happen, he dreaded the morning he entered his study to write it.
Oh, man, do I grok that now.
Nevertheless, I acknowledged that writer’s block had happened to me in the past and might again, so I went ahead and made a plan. I could:
So, that didn’t go as planned. Do you know what, though? I got over it. I know that I will declutter this space once a week and it will be a zen meditation for me--just as it is in my business office, which is shared by my staff and is even worse.
For my next trick, I was going to have to organize my writing files--oh, the horror!--and rejoin my writer’s group, who’d begun staging interventions to try to get me to come back.
More about that in the next post. In the meantime--what are you doing?
Ok, it felt worse than that. It felt, like an old friend once said, “like holding a refrigerator over my head while the dog pees on my leg”. Ugh.
I have been a writer for a few years, and as such I know that moving past this feeling means I have to push through. It’s just that my entire life has felt like nothing but pushing through for about seven years now. That’s when I decided to do three things at the same time--move away from my home of fifty-five years, open a business and retire (or so I thought).
Yes, wiser people than I advised against it. However, I have never been one to listen to others.
So...life has been a struggle for a while. It doesn’t make it any better that I chose this. I have had periods of less challenge with my life, of course--and during those times my creativity has surged and produced and fulfilled me and I've felt joy.
Over the last year or so with COVID, though, my writing life has felt like slogging through the mud--a series of broken promises to myself, my stories, and my writer friends that slowly but surely bogged me into creative mud that hardened into concrete. I was tired, so tired, of being trapped there. It was time to face the fact that I had to stop getting more cheese to go with my whine and PULL. MYSELF. UP.
So I started following a list of things to do from this article:
The above article contains a lot more than JUST setting a writing schedule. That’s the first thing I needed to do, though: set a schedule and KEEP it.
It’s hard some days. As a business person I almost always have my phone on and my email open, and our clients reach out at ALL hours. When my business started in 2015 I needed to respond before a competitor did. Now, as COVID social distancing has eased, it’s even more important we pick up every new customer we can. However, the siren call of work is best handled these days by my husband and managers--so away from my writing desk my phone goes, with a quick text letting people know I am not available.
I just need one hour a day--one hour.
Soon, I realized that I could put something that has haunted me for years to good use--my insomnia--to help with keeping my writing schedule. Probably not in the way you’re imagining, though. See, I’m a morning person. As I age, I also don’t often sleep for more than six hours at a time--sometimes even less. About noon, though, my energy flags, decision fatigue kicks in and I need a nap--which I generally do now about every day. Even after that, though, my willpower is gone.
SO I started doing my planning, exercising, and writing early, early, early. We’re talking 3 a.m. early. Because that’s when I wake up naturally, now.
I have spent years trying to learn the magic secret of staying asleep longer, but guess what? I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to get up and write--after a couple of cups of coffee, thank you. The best part is: no one else is awake to distract me at that time!
Yes. Now that’s more like it.
Next, I chose three projects to work on each week. My current novel gets four days, my fanfiction two days, and this blog one. This combination of projects is a nice mix for me since my novel is the most complicated project, my fanfic is just relaxing and my blog is a place where I can let out some of my thinking processes and, hopefully, help someone else.
Outlining and setting deadlines for these three was a bit harder, but I just took a deep breath and dived in--after all, they were mine to change as needed and no one was around to critique. As I’m a planner at heart, I felt better after this--I had a plan!--and I moved on to the next step.
At this point, I realized I might not have what most people think of as “writer’s block”. The section of my novel where I’d gotten stuck was a very dark place--no one would want to go there. But I remembered Stephen King--one of my heroes--writing about a scene in his novel The Shining
that was so scary that even though he knew what was going to happen, he dreaded the morning he entered his study to write it.
Oh, man, do I grok that now.
Nevertheless, I acknowledged that writer’s block had happened to me in the past and might again, so I went ahead and made a plan. I could:
- Open my Writer Emergency Pack or use online prompts
- Free write to generate ideas
- Research--start a list of things to research and work it
- Go to my Writer’s Group’s Slack board and chat with or read the work of my writer friends
Of course I know how to set a word goal and did that.
Now, as to my writing space...we currently live in a tiny adobe house next to our business. My husband and I share a cramped little bedroom as an office, and even though I cleaned off the desk and re-organized it with all of my writing things about a week ago, here’s what’s currently on it.
So, that didn’t go as planned. Do you know what, though? I got over it. I know that I will declutter this space once a week and it will be a zen meditation for me--just as it is in my business office, which is shared by my staff and is even worse.
That’s one of the things I like about being a writer, though. I can just get started and go somewhere else if I wanna.
For my next trick, I was going to have to organize my writing files--oh, the horror!--and rejoin my writer’s group, who’d begun staging interventions to try to get me to come back.
More about that in the next post. In the meantime--what are you doing?
Get writing, will ya?
