My Organisation

While a lot of stuff I put on this blog is about writing as a such, there’s another level to it as well - being organized enough to keep writing. I do like being organized and that means I’ve tried out several things over time, for doing my outlines and for keeping an eye on my writing in the physical sense.

 

In 2020, I migrated my outlining from OneNote to Campfire Pro and, even though it was a pain in the ass to do, I’m glad I did it. Campfire Pro has all I need to keep my notes on my series together and in the same place. It’s flexible to use and I certainly can work well with it. That doesn’t mean OneNote didn’t work for me, but Campfire Pro works better.

Usually, I’m using three of the areas for my work: characters, timeline, and encyclopaedia.

The character area is pretty self-explanatory, I should think. There, I keep names, characteristics, and other information about a recurring character. It helps me to keep things constant, especially with my series. I would hate to give a character a different look all in a sudden or give them skills they’ve not had before and which haven’t been introduced in any way.

The timeline is where I do the actual plotting. I use the ‘event’ pieces for the scenes and build my story that way. Like this, I lay out what happens in the story from beginning to end, see where the plot goes, see how to tell the story. It’s a good way to do my ‘discovery plotting’ and helps me find big holes before I start writing the story.

In the encyclopaedia, I put down important things happening in a story, the non-recurring characters, and a summary. This is where I can look up information when I need to reference something from another part of a series, which can come in very handy. In essence, all stuff that doesn’t go into the character or timeline area goes here.

For some stories, like those about my necromancers, I also use some parts of the world-building pack to write up magic or organisations.

 

The second thing I couldn’t keep organized without is my bullet journal. I actually started to use one to track my word count each day in 2014 and it developed from there (since 2019 with the help of YouTube and the internet…).

I have a work tracker for each month which I reworked in April this year, switching from only tracking my words per day and my editing on release months to tracking my words, my editing, my plotting, and my research every month. I’ve been doing it for two months now and have entered the third and it works wonderfully. It’s much more representative of my work than my old tracker was, which does wonders for my motivation.

In addition to that, I’ve had a list with my books for release for a long time already and have recently added a list with stories I still need to write and a specially-made kaban board with all the stories which are at least in the plotting stage and not yet out of release.

Every month, I set myself a goal in words and list a book to release on a release month. Every week, I list the chapters I wish to write or to edit. Like this, I have a good plan of what to do in a week and know what to do next. That doesn’t mean these plans always work out - real life does exist and interferes often enough. It means, however, that I can judge what I can do in a week and what I might be able to finish when.

For writing longer stories, such as a novel, that is very helpful. A novel seems pretty long when you start - when you can write down chapter one to eight or ten for the first week (that I can do in a week and I know it), it looks much shorter. A chapter is much less scary than twenty or thirty or more, much more manageable. Yet, ever chapter brings me closer to the big goal of finishing a novel or a set of novellas.

I’m glad I have my bullet journal for this part of the organisation. I could do it in a digital form, too, but sometimes it’s just so nice to have something analogue, something you can touch and carry around with you. I’m doing much better with a self-made calendar I can use whatever way I want and need to.

 

For the actual process of writing, I have a pomodoro app which I’m very glad for. The pomodoro method, for those of you who haven’t heard about it, is a way of pacing the work day. Usually, it’s 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes for a small break, and, all four cycles, a 15-minute break for a bit more rest. Like this, you can work very focused without getting too exhausted. It’s much better than trying to work without a break or getting distracted every few minutes after a while because your concentration goes down. With the 25/5 rhythm, concentration can be kept up for much longer, at least for me.

I use my app both for writing and for editing (for my novels I set work time to 30 minutes in editing, but that’s the only change I need). It paces me and enables me to write two chapters of 3,000 words each per day. I don’t say I could never do that before, but it’s certainly much easier with the app and I can do it reliably, not just when the muse strikes me.

 

Discipline is a must, but good organisation helps with writing, too. Campfire Pro gives me a way of plotting in peace and ironing out the problems with a story before I put the first word into my word processor. My bullet journal helps me keep an eye on what I’m doing for my work, how much I write, when and what I plot, what I edit or when I’m doing research. The pomodoro app helps me to focus while I’m writing or editing, efficiently working and doing things in as short a time as possible. All three together keep me organized and allow for me to keep up a four-books-a-year publishing cycle.