How to be an Organized Writer

My office desk

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To be a good writer, one also has to be an organized writer. Sure you may see the unorganized writers on television shows. They are disheveled looking. They have papers all over their desks and stacks of papers and books everywhere. Yet, they are published writers and they make tons of money. Sure this could happen to you. But it is a lot easier to be a published writer if you are also an organized writer. Here are some steps to help you get you started on your organized life.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

File folders
A filing cabinet
A dictionary and thesaurus
A notebook
A few pads of paper and working pens

Step1

Start with a clean desk. Organize those papers. Place the needed ones in file folders. Put the others away and finally discard the ones you no longer need.

Step2

Make sure you have little pads of paper and a working pen at various locations such as: your desk, your bed, on an end table in your living room, in your car and if you carry one, in your purse. You never know when inspiration will strike and you don’t want to loose any great ideas.

Step3

If you send out a lot of articles, short stories, query letters, etc, keep a notebook telling you where you sent what and the date. This helps keeps you organized. When an acceptance letter comes in (hopefully many will) or a rejection letter (hopefully few), you can make a notation of this. Then you will know it is safe to resend the project or to add it to your resume as a credit listing.

Step4

Keep a dictionary or a thesaurus handy. Better yet, you could download a program like wordweb for your computer (see Resources below).

Step5

Buy a file cabinet and use it. Add those files from those papers on your desk. You might need files for short story ideas, article ideas, a file folder with names of possible places to send your projects, a folder for possible jobs to check on (before to add a date to each listing as you file it), etc.

Step6

If you are using a computer and storing your works on it, always make a back up copy. You never know when trouble will arise and your computer will stop working. You don’t want to loose all your hard work and your precious words.

Tips & Warnings

Try to put things back where they belong at the end of each work day.
Go through your papers at least once a week to keep things organized.
It will take time to get used to your new system. But once you do, you might find that you are even more creative than usual.