#110 - How to Organize Your Writing?

How do you organize your writing? Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz, and I help writers get their books out of their heads and onto paper using my book formulas and virtual writing retreats so that you can write words that outlive you and self publish books that fulfill your calling. In each of my Ask Shelley episodes, I promise to share at least one thing that will help you write, self publish and market your books so that the message of your books can impact lives. So I received this question like, how do you create a plan to help organize writing, not just the publishing of the book? And this is a great question, and there are many ways to organize your writing. I'm going to share a few ideas, but I want to preface this by saying the best way to organize your writing is what works best for you. So you may have to do some trial and error and you may have to see is it something digital that works for me, or is it something analog? So if it's analog, it's like paper and pen, it's something you can hold. And I've actually found that a lot of our Christian Book Academy members or the clients that I worked with, they actually prefer analog. You know, writing something out with paper and pen. I choose usually a hybrid approach, so a little bit of both. And so just know that there's going to be something different that works for each of you. And I want you just to feel free to experiment and don't feel free and don't feel boxed in by any one certain way to do it. So the first thing is you want to organize the outline. Now, some of you are what's called pantsters, and that means you fly by the seat of your pants and the fiction novel just comes to you as you write or something like that. But a lot of times what I found is that even if you have a simple outline for the next scene or for the next chapter, instead of sitting down to write and looking at that blank page, you have something to start with. And that way you at least have somewhere to go with the next part that you're writing. And it takes some of that writer's block away. And so with an outline, there's again, digital, there's analog, and there can be hybrid ways to do it. In the past, I've loved using mind maps, and I will link to a video tutorial where I've done that below. And one of the things that I love about mind maps is that you can move things around. And so I like that because when you're outlining a book and you Just want to get that ugly, messy first draft out of your head and onto paper. It doesn't need to be perfect. And so what happens is in that first draft process and in the outlining process, things often move around. They change or, you know, this chapter just doesn't seem to fit anymore, or this scene may go down here. And so if you have something and the system that you're using allows some flexibility, that's the best option. So with mind mapping, you can. You have little nodules and you can move them around. And then you, you know, you have a circle with a line, maybe another circle, another line. You know, it's just. But then you can close things down. So for. For me, my brain gets overwhelmed if I see everything at once. So I can close all the other chapters down except the very one that I'm working on that works really well for me. Now I have a Christian Book Academy member, Jennifer Waddle, and she loves using mind maps written out analog. So on a piece of paper, she'll just draw a big circle with the book topic or title or tentative title or whatever, and then different lines of that for the different chapters. That works really good for her. Then I have another academy member, and she actually was my partner for many years, Heather Hart. She prefers analog and she uses sticky notes. So she'll have a binder with the little sheet protectors, and then she'll put a piece of copy paper in there, but she'll take that out and she. She'll use sticky notes. So the sticky notes will be the different chapters. And then so she can move those around like you would move the mind map around. And then once she kind of has it in the, you know, the position she wants, she puts it back into that sheet protector, and she can always refer back to it or take it out and move it around, or take off a sticky note, throw that one away, put on a new one. Right? Because that's the way it works. Let's just be real that, you know, it's just messy. It's just messy. And that first draft is ugly. It's messy. No one's ever meant to see it. But when you're organizing your outline, those are some things to keep in mind is, are you able to move things around? At least use some sort of pencil or there's also these friction pens, and this is actually one of them, and they're erasable. So this one has like a little eraser, and you can actually erase the pen. So, you know, that's something. If you prefer pens that's something to think about as well. But the second thing to think about is as you're actually writing the content, so now you already have the outline and now you're wanting to write the content. I like to think about.

You know, having the content in buckets. So, you know, you know, all of your information will be in different containers or different buckets. And how you want to organize this is up to you. You could have a Google Drive folder for that book, and then you could have a document and then just use heading titles so you can easily navigate it, but then just kind of dump everything for the chapter one under that heading. And that's what I did. Recently we have been helping my dad write a book about his life and his assault and brain injury that happened in 2009. But I just took out a Google Doc and I used the headings because then I can look in Outline View. So in Outline View, when you're in Google Docs, you can just click right to that chapter. And so I just took all of the transcripts from his videos, all of the content from his blog, all of the stuff that I was taking from interviews that I was doing with him, and I would just copy and paste it into those buckets. And basically my buckets were just using the heading tag in Google Docs so it would show up in my Outline view. And then I was able to organize that stuff later. You may want to have a different Google Doc for each chapter in the beginning, and then you just dump everything for that chapter in that doc. You may want to have a different folder for each chapter. I mean, it really is up to you. It depends on how much research you have. You know, maybe you have a lot of quotes. Some people use Evernote. I used that years ago, but. But I no longer use it. I just find Google Drive. I mean, it's just easy, it's free. But, you know, it's on my phone, my iPad, my computer, and you know, it's searchable. It's just, to me, it's just been the simplest, easiest way. But I know some of you are not into that. So you can, you can use all sorts of different organization tools. Some people love Notion, and some people really love using different writing softwares like Scrivener. But my recommendation to you is, let's not go and learn a whole new software right now. So use what you already know. So if you're on a computer and you mean even Google Drive is like, oh, I don't know. It's like, it's just New to you. Just use Create a folder on your. On your computer for your book, and then create a folder for, you know, the first draft, and then however you want to organize it, but. And then use a Word, document, pages, whatever you're used to. Because the thing is, we can go into learning Scrivener or learning Evernote, and, oh, someone says you need to use this software. And then guess what? We don't write the book because we get stuck trying to learn the software. So don't let that be a sticking point for you. Now, if you like to learn things and you want to do that, go for it. Now all the digital stuff is just like, no, I'm not really wanting that right now. You can again, use the binder method with folders. So I know some of our members in Christian Book Academy, and my mom is one of them. She, you know, she likes to write out, and with her it's paper and pencil, not even pen, like pencil. And that's when it flows for her. So use what works best for her for you. But she'll write her book in that way. And so you could actually have different folders in your binder where you keep the content for different chapters. Maybe there's an article that you print off or a quote that you print off and, you know, just things that you're jotting down, ideas that you're jotting down. You know, maybe you use the Notes app on your phone. Maybe that's what you use. I know a really, really successful copywriter, and she recently admitted, like, she runs, like, her business from the Notes app, the free Notes app on her iPhone. But she creates folders in the Notes app. So the tip of this, even, like notebooks, you could get a five subject notebook or just buy those little tabs and then you have sections where you're gathering all the content for that chapter. But the whole thing about this is you want to find what works best for you and create buckets, some sort of container that contains the different things. So you may want to have a bucket for all your research, a bucket for all your quotes. Like, if I have certain images, I'll have a bucket for those images. And that way it's just organized, it's easy to find. It's kind of like having drawers in your closet. Like, we have a whole thing. Like, we didn't put it in. It was there when we bought this condo. But there's a whole closet organization thing. And it has, you know, different shelves and different drawers. And that's what you want to Think about like these bunch buckets or these folders or these different things that you're creating. It's like creating drawers. So I know which drawer of mine has my socks in it. So you know which drawer or which bucket has your research or has. Chapter one, use whatever works for you. These are just a few ideas. So number one, talked about organizing your outline. Number two, organizing your actual writing content and any research that you're collecting, any ideas. And then number three is organizing a to do list so you again can use a simple notebook, you know, just that you buy at Walmart or at the dollar store. I mean it doesn't have to be fancy. I mean I don't have it here, but I have those little like notebooks with the spirals on the top and you can just, you know, it's easy to carry with you. They have those small ones that you can just jot things down in. You know, that might be something where you, you just make your to do list in there and then you can cross things out, you can create a new one. But I prefer most of the time is to keep everything organized online. I've used many different ways to do my to do list and you don't have to use anything fancy. I mean they have a simple thing that's free with Google, I think it's called Google Tasks. But just find something that you can use. I've even used a Google document and they have the little check mark instead of a bullet. You can do a check mark and then you actually can click that, check that box and it marks it as done. So that's a really easy way. Just, I mean if you're already using Google Drive, it's an easy way to do it. But sometimes I do like the, you know, the handheld things and I have sticky notes and I have things all over here. But then, you know, just write kind of what is, what is next for your writing? Like what are you going to be working on next? Or what are some things that you want to research or what's something you don't want to forget. And so I hope that this has given you a few ideas, it sparked something in you. And like I said, trial and error. Don't try to shove a round peg into a square hole. I always say that to writers is find what works for you. And so number one, try organizing your outline. Number two, organize your actual writing of that first draft and then coming the final draft, organize it in buckets of some sort, however that looks like to you. And then organize your to do list. So I hope this has been helpful if you would like more help in getting that book out of your head onto paper and really being able to self publish your book this year even in the midst of a busy schedule like we help you fit book writing in the nooks and crannies of your life inside Christian Book Academy. So come join us. Join us@christianbookacademy.com we would love to have you and I will see you next time. Bye Bye.