One of the things I've been meaning to do for a while is to go through all my notebooks (of which there are many) and all my scraps of paper (of which there are also many) and find all the little snippets I've written pertaining to the various WIP. Some people might actually have a notebook for each WIP but not me. I grab whatever is handy, write in it, leave it somewhere in the house and usually misplace it for a few days to a few weeks to even longer. It was a recent "misplacement" of a notebook that sent me into a panic trying to find what I had written about Plant Kid and Flyboy and Max. (which turned out to be spread across 5 different notebooks.)
You'll be happy to know that I did find said notebook. (I wanted to set your mind at ease on that right away. I could sense your worry across the virtual space.) I spent most of yesterday curled up in a chair in my office reading old notebooks and getting reacquainted with various trains of my writing mind. At the end of the day I realized I had 7 books that I was still passionate about writing. (Not all at the same time.) 4 middle grades, 2 YAs and 1 historical picture book. A couple of traces of "found words" reminded me how much I had been in love with a particular historical story that I had originally written as a picture book but now plan to do as a novel. It was like meeting an old friend I hadn't seen in a long time. A couple of the other books were ideas that are loosely based on incidents from my childhood which reminded me to mention the book Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg. I don't plan on writing mine as a memoir but I believe the prods in this book will help me remember things about my childhood that I have long forgotten.
This morning I went through much of the files on my computer and moved more of those snippets into folders associated with the various WIPs. I've really got no excuse left. It's time to generate more words, messy first and second and third drafts and get further along into the stories.
But it was something I had to do first, to get ready.
How do you organize all the various pieces of a book as you are writing it?
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Things to Do
Quotes
"We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little." Anne Lamott
"Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing...the rest will follow."Jane Yolen
"The whole thing is, you’ve got to make them care about somebody." Frank Capra
"As writers, we must be willing to feel our sadness, our anger, our terror, so we can reach in and find our sweet vulnerability that is just sitting there waiting for us to come back home." Nancy Slonim Aronie
"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours!" Richard Bach
"Yet somehow, we write; and most of the time, we like what we write. The dark place seems less dark when we get there. It was only the journey that was fearful." Susan Shaughnessy
"You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft -- then you can add all the genius you like." Phyllis A. Whitney
"Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is." Anne Rice
"I write in terror. I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, sometimes every syllable." Cynthia Ozick
"There have been societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." Ursula K. LeGuin
"Your first job is to get your own story straight." Natalie Goldberg
"Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking." Naomi Wolf
"Few children learn to read books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way." Orville Prescott
"A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults." Ursula K. LeGuin
"I'd always thought you had to be a special person to write. And then I realized you just have to start." Abigail Thomas
"You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need." Jerry Gillies
"But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer." Doris Lessing
"A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote."Yevgeny Yentushenko
"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the
greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't
believe in magic will never find it." Roald Dahl
"I compose sometimes with a pen and notebook, sometimes on the computer; it makes no difference. If all I had was a chisel and a rock I would write on the rock." Ursula Le Guin
"If you want to write from a place of emotional integrity, it is important to learn everything you can about all kinds of emotions, including those that exist in you, that you wish didn't." Elizabeth Berg
"And this is the way a novel gets written, in ignorance, fear, sorrow, madness, and a kind of psychotic happiness as an incubator for the wonders being born." Jack Kerouac
"Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties." Bonnie Friedman
Who am I?I was born on the Cancer/Leo cusp and share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and Robin Williams. The similarities don't stop there as I can go from depressed to ecstatic without ever passing go. I feel scared most of the time though my friends call me brave and I find it easier to believe in my friends than to believe in my own abilities to make what I want out of my life.
Who am I? A wife, a mother, a daughter, and even, gulp, a grandmother.
Who am I? A writer who never gets tired of playing with words, even when the words are hard to find. A writer of books for children and articles for grown-ups and many things in-between.
Who am I? A motivational speaker, writing instructor, workshop leader and full-time follower of dreams.
Who am I? Read and find out.
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carriep63
Comments
So you're one of those primary notebook people, eh? LOL
Lol! I'm in the same predicament . . . this last month, I have lots of writing thoughts, but no time to do more than jot them down. In the fall, when I can finally go through them, each note is like a little present . . . an ah-ha! moment.
Thank goodness you found your notebook! And seven books . . .how wonderful!
Seven books - wonderful if I actually FINISH them. :-)
Everytime I try long hand, it just goes away. Even if I keep the notebook, it seems to become nothing to me but scribbles. I think it has something to do with having everything in one place and definitely not trusting my brain to rememeber or read (in my awful writing) anything without seeing in 12 point Times New Roman. :)
My problem is not being in the same place all the time. When I have ideas at work I scribble them down. I can email them to myself but then I lose them in my email box.
You sound VERY organized. Maybe you'll rub off on me? :-)
Did you get my email about next week?
Think Friday.
xo
Mona
No, maybe not.It was a wee bit scary. I always say I write in spite of myself. It would be amazing if I could just get out of my own way.
During a major move planning on getting rid of stuff, and seeing all these flashes of inspiration and fun ideas, there was no way I could get rid of them. So they're in boxes of all types, organized chronologically by accident, when I fill a new one w/ notebooks.
2. But now it's computer. (Reminder to back up our work!!!)
3. For the 3 major works from the past 20 years, they each have a notebook with a title on the spine and a place in my bookcase.
I wanted to set your mind at ease on that right away. I could sense your worry across the virtual space.
I don't feel organized - I keep getting IKEA organizers, and still want to organize more....ai!
I don't know, take it to the next level.
It's the accountant in me.
:)
of course, then I just start saving them again. . .lol!