Sorting out a bit of dismay

One of the things I struggle with most when it comes to my creative writing work (and I include all writing when I say creative) is that sustained creative activity requires trackable nodal connections between the ever-increasing, ever-accumulating bits that make up the process of creation. Bits! I cringe as I type the word—I rarely type! I write, instead, with a pen—on scraps of paper, in endless epic notebooks, on disposable notepads (with my shopping list alongside), in my diary (which is perpetually nicknamed "War and Peace" in honour of its capacious hold-all-ness), or even on the backs of handy bits of cash-register/till-tape*—

Bits!

Then I get a fit in my head, and I do type—I type up all these little bits, these notes, these notebooks, these scribbles in margins, these madcap ideas I want to refer to later. I type them up into document files, and these files get carefully constructed names that mean a lot at the time and nothing at all in the afterlife of their variously disintegrating relevance—

Oh dear. Bits = Dismay...

Yet, I uphold that it is the nature of the creative process to progress from one thing to another, to leap to a different idea, a different train of thought, a different theoretical position, a different author's work. The activity of writing is dynamic, and it is one of the writer's tasks to organise and keep track of the all the nodes produced by the bits that get reused, repositioned, rewritten, and (finally and sometimes regretfully) rejected; the bits that get outmoded as ideas progress; the remains of whole drafts that get discarded after they're pulled to pieces for their limbs; the temporary files that are created in libraries, in airports, or on trains; the vital references to literature recommendations, or discussions about ideas that sit caught in emails; and then (of course) the vital quotes and must-read lists that are written on the backs of handy pieces of till-tape—

So, yes, bits! (I know of which I speak.) And at some point, we may need at least some of these bits...

So, what to do to organise this morass of creative life so that when you want that one item you know you wrote about a year and a half ago regarding the likes of Watson et al., you can find it? Well, personally, I turn the house upside down looking for the notebook I think it's in; then I turn the notebook upside down (literally—to shake out the receipt paper—)—but I don't recommend this. Rather than try to make too many recommendations at all, in fact—enmired as I am in the mud of my own creating—I instead decided to google the topic (I mean I googled writing organisation, not enmired—the built-in spell-checker does not like this word as much as I do, but I'm sure you know what I mean).

I found a great blog by a guy called Brooks Duncan (2022) that beautifully describes the way in which long-term project materials can be organised so that they can be efficiently electronically managed. Without a strong file organisation, finding Watson et al. could take (as Duncan notes, and as you may have experienced) five hours instead of five minutes. You can read Duncan's blog here: https://www.asianefficiency.com/organization/organize-your-files-folders-documents/.

I also have a couple of file-finding/indexing ideas of my own (nothing to do with manually-filed notes-on-till-tape, don't worry!). You may know some of these, and you may not. I hope one or other of them helps you.

Have a beautiful(ly organised) day!

*Till-tape is the receipt paper that comes out of the cash register.

Become a power-user of operating system file search tools

Search for particular words/file data inside files using Windows 10 File Explorer: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/search-through-file-contents-windows-10/

Search for particular words/file data inside files using Mac's Finder app: https://mac.eltima.com/find-files-on-mac.html

Make MSWord work (harder) for you

Learn to index your files in MSWord https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64L-mOumBuY so that all your files and discarded drafts can contain a curated list of any word or topic that you think you might want to refer to later but know you don't need right now. The index Word can create in a document from your marked index entries can be generated anywhere in the document, so you can place it at the beginning of discarded drafts and can thus see immediately on opening the file what items remain in the skeleton of your otherwise dismembered previous literature review.

Take a pro-software approach

Scrivener is a brilliant writers' word-processing/file organisation/indexing program created by a private developer. This is professional writing software, and, while it requires both a little financial investment and a little time to learn how to use it effectively, Scrivener is ideal for long-term projects such as theses. You can find out about it here: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview. If you decide to consider Scrivener, have a look at this rather long but very candid description of how others have found using it, and how you can learn it fast: https://www.learnscrivenerfast.com/?r_done=1.

Reference

Duncan, B. (2022). How to organize files, folders and documents for maximum productivity.

Asian Efficiency. https://www.asianefficiency.com/organization/organize-your-files-folders-documents/