Dirty Little Secrets of the Creative Writer's Brain: Organization Challenges

I met with a zany, creative, wonderful client today. She took me into her living room and showed me her coffee table. It was covered with notebooks, tablets, and mockup booklets. This was her writing, and she wanted me to tell her how to publish it. 

I think this disorganization represents a lot of us. Creative types tend to have brains that don't always connect in a linear way. We are notebook carriers. We jot down ideas on napkins. We will scribble down a few lines on any surface that will take ink. 

I have a few (read "20") notebooks myself, but not the piles that this particular writer has accumulated. But I still have a dirty little disorganizational secret, and it's in the form of about forty thumb drives stuck in the drawer of a side table in my bedroom. My laptop files aren't exactly pristine either, although I do my best to at least keep each project in a particular folder. 

Getting organized is hard, but it is a necessary step onto the bridge leading from writer to published writer. You are never going to be able to share your ideas unless you can express them in a way that others can follow. 

So I told her to start wading through her notes and pick out some small pieces to craft into short stories or essays. She countered that she didn't want to write essays. She wants to write her memoirs so she can help people on journeys of recovery. 

I love that. And her memoirs are going to happen. But I was finally able to convince her that she has to start by organizing small chunks. Then when she has a few of these bits, she can put them together into larger pieces. This is how she will complete her puzzle. 

You can't eat the whole pizza in one bite, and you have to conquer the amusement park one roller coaster at a time. 

An additional benefit to this approach is that she is going to understand the big picture much more clearly when she recognizes each element of the whole. She may also be able to use some of these smaller pieces to gain some credibility by publishing in magazines or essay collections. 

Without some kind of system, your brilliant work can drown in itself. Don't let that happen.