OK, so I'm a writer...

as a fairly new writer (of pieces other than 3 minute songs), i get asked a lot of questions. some of the questions aren't from writers or even aspiring ones; they are just curious--normally the first question is something along the lines of "how can you write more than 10 pages?":)

so,  in effort to not only answer those questions i get and ones i've asked myself, i have decided to start a series of posts entitled "OK, so i'm a writer..." and the next part of that ellipses is "but then what?"

anyone can say he/she is a writer, that he/she writes...but then what do you do? i happen to currently be on this journey, so i can give you a nearly real time account of what i'm doing. 

this post in the series  is about organization. 

                                       

writers, artists, musicians, songwriters, painters...they all seem to get a couple of passes. "sorry, i'm not inspired right now",  "i've hit a wall creatively", "writer's block", "i've been stuck in this room, i need to get out and live before i can work anymore" or my favorite: "things in my life are good. i have nothing to write about" :) 

the funny thing is, these are all completely true. you can be uninspired, you can be hitting a wall where nothing worth writing down/painting/singing into the mic etc is coming out. you can be experiencing a block, you can work too much that you don't live to see anything worth musing over, and yes, it is hardest to write about life when it's good. pain and anguish--those are the ingredients you can really make a masterpiece from. 

so if you're a writer (and let's just use writers from this point forward), you can do something to combat those frustrating thoughts and times. get organized. figure out your system for catching those fleeting or abundant ideas. and your system might need to be a combination of digital and physical. it might seem stupid or redundant. it might seem to be the opposite of creative. but i assure you it's not. 

think of it as a dream-catcher. a word-catcher. that way it won't seem so studious or nerdy:)

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what do i do? i have a couple different places for my ideas to land and i'll tell you why. not all ideas are created equally. not all ideas are the idea. the book idea, the title idea. some of them will be little things you saw and don't want to forget or something you think will turn into an idea if you just give it time. but they all have something in common: you need to write them down. you might not forget all of them, but believe me, i have sat in my office for like 15 minutes at a time some days, trying to rack my brain in search of "what in the heck was i doing when i had that lightbulb go off?" i literally sit there and retrace my steps from days ago trying to locate it. sometimes i never find it, sometimes i do. 

the point is, it's not worth sitting there for any length of time. not in our age of iphones and voice memos and computers everywhere...oh ya and there are these things called purses and pockets--and moleskine notebooks that fit quite nicely in small places. 

i have these things right here: 

1. a larger moleskine that i decorated (as seen in a post forever ago). this is the "catch-all" if you will. if the idea doesn't have a home yet, it goes in here. and most ideas don't have homes at first. (i had one of these books for my songwriting ideas too. it's funny though because my author version gets used a lot more. maybe because not every idea has to be monumental like in a three minute song.)

2. i have this guy: my trusty iphone with my Notes and Voice Memos functions (if i am driving and don't want to wreck the car--please don't wreck your car.) 

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3. once you have the overarching idea for a story, you need to start with one of these- a history/research notebook. this can be anything from a composition book to a journal type book to a spiral. this is where you write your notes on anything and everything about your story. you can have a method of how you write it, but i don't. i just make sure it gets in there. i research and brainstorm and list ideas and names...basically anything and everything. and i find that if you have a place to put all of it, your brain makes room for more ideas and more information. trying to keep a story in your head is brutal and gives me a headache. probably because you are sitting there trying not to knock the water out of a cup. but eventually the ideas will fill to the brim and they will start falling over the side. make sure your ideas stay in tact. and don't rely on your brain to keep them. rely on it to make them come alive. then write 'em down. (and i color-code each set of notebooks for a particular story so i can keep them straight--over the top? maybe. but it helps!)

4. what if you print out some articles in  your research? good question. get a folder. i tried not having a folder for my first book--i had loose leaf paper in random places in my office and couldn't find  any of the pieces when i needed them to refer to. 

5. ok, so you have research done. you're ready to start writing the manuscript. there are two different ways to go about this next part: i write my entire story down on paper in a large sketchbook . you can type yours into Word or another word processor. eventually, i'll type my story into storyist. i think i've mentioned it before.  some prefer typewriters which is a fun way to marry type and paper. whether you go digital or traditional, make sure it works for you (first and foremost). if you go digital (and you will have to eventually) back it up often. 

6. i use usb ports for my backups of anything related to my stories. anything digital has a home on these  usb animals. and the cow is actually a backup of the pig--it's the little things :)

                                                        

7. and finally, when i am done with a draft, i print it out and put it in an expandable envelope and label it. i not only read and make corrections in these drafts, but they serve as another way to back up each draft. heaven forbid i lose any of my other methods. i'd rather live safe than sorry. it might seem like a waste to some people--of ink/paper. but i look at it this way: i just wrote 300+ pages of my own thoughts. i worked really hard on it. it would be a shame to lose it. 

                                

that's the main point: you don't want to lose anything. ideas, drafts, your work.