Help

[minionlover]

I've jotted down a ton of thoughts and ideas, and I have no way to organize them. They're scattered all around, they're on word documents, separate google accounts, notepads, and some are even on my walls and desks.

I genuinely feel lost at this point, how do I gather everything? I'm afraid of losing progress.

 

[Erylm]

As long as you don't delete them you won't lose progress, just a massive time sink to organize. Perhaps it'll help to skim over them really quick and write down what you remember, (that tends end up being more important) and go from there.

There is no 'easy' way to organize information when you followed no predetermined system writing it down. But as long as it is written down somewhere any progress lost will just be temporary.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

You won't lose progress but you should take a few days to find all your notes, sort them, and simplify them in some manner to allow ease of access.

 

[Dieter]

Make another notebook.
Write down stuff from everywhere else into there.

 

[minionlover]

As long as you don't delete them you won't lose progress, just a massive time sink to organize. Perhaps it'll help to skim over them really quick and write down what you remember, (that tends end up being more important) and go from there.

There is no 'easy' way to organize information when you followed no predetermined system writing it down. But as long as it is written down somewhere any progress lost will just be temporary.

You won't lose progress but you should take a few days to find all your notes, sort them, and simplify them in some manner to allow ease of access.

Make another notebook.
Write down stuff from everywhere else into there.

Yeah, I'm a fault for never forming a system. I'll probably skim over my notes and choose which matter most to me and insert them into a singular file, as for the rest... I'm not sure.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Buy someone on craigslist to do it for you for $4 an hour

 

[georgelee5786]

Compile them all, then organize them over time.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Welcome to my writing style.

1. Write three times what you need.
2. Take half of it and put it off to the side in a folder labeled, "IDEAS"
3. Slowly whittle away the remaining 150% to the absolute bare minimum until you get as concentrated a story as you can get.

It's called Pareto distribution. A bell curve. When you have randomness involved in anything where you are doing the same thing over and over, you get a bell curve of outcomes. If you write 100 ideas, 50 of them will be below average. 20 of those ideas will be 4 our of 5 stars, and 1 will be 5 out of 5 stars.

Yes. If you want ONE awesome idea, you need to create and throw out 99 others.

Writing is a numbers game. In the end, no matter how good you are, it's just grinding. So you have all these good ideas and no idea how to use them?

DON'T.

You will write another book. You need to CHERRY PICK THE BEST IDEAS. It is the difference between a writer who's writing is a joke and a writer who is above average. The above average writer NEVER USES ALL HIS IDEAS.

I get it. You worked so hard to come up with the awesome idea. You want to use ALL the awesome ideas. You don't want to waste your time and effort on what you wrote so far. Well, guess what?

BY THE LAW OF AVERAGES, HALF YOUR IDEAS SUCK.

Sorry. You, my friend, are 46 coin flips. 23 from dad, and 23 from mom. This is on top of the random chance your parents met in the first place out of the 7 billion people on the planet. EVERY HUMAN IS AS RANDOM AS IT GETS. Humanity is BORN on a bell curve. This is why, in the end, everything you DO eventually can be tied to a bell curve. This is a fact. Live with it.

You want to slap together a book?
Go with your first ideas.

You want to write a book that slaps?
Write three times what you need, throw out half, and very carefully prune away everything that isn't useful for the final draft.

But do yourself a favor, take a day and transcribe all those loose notes in a text file before you forget them. It doesn't matter what order. Just copy into a big text file and whenever you are stuck, go back and look up ideas. When you use an idea, move it to a file called, "I USED THIS ALREADY."

Over time, if you follow my advice, over the years you will have HUGE folders full of random ideas. So, later, when you are screwed and need to write a full book in a month, you will have a folder FULL of rejected ideas. Statistically speaking, about 20% of those ideas will be useful. I've had to write books in less than a month for an order and thrown shit together from my Idea folder in less than a week. I sometimes sign up for contests and finish everything in a few hours, because I already did 90% of the work in my idea folder.

You do not have "lost progress". You have a cushion of ideas.

it's okay if some ideas are lost. It's okay if you forget shit. You can always write more. You can always come up with more ideas. Trust me. Stop letting this get in the way.

STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW AND COPY EVERYTHING OVER INTO TEXT FILES AND STORE THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER IN AN IDEA FOLDER RIGHT NOW.

In the long run, it is the best thing you can do as a writer to have it as a "cushion" when the crunch is on.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Carefully

Rewrite everything, discarding the ideas that no longer serve you.

 

[udin-san]

Welcome to my writing style.

1. Write three times what you need.
2. Take half of it and put it off to the side in a folder labeled, "IDEAS"
3. Slowly whittle away the remaining 150% to the absolute bare minimum until you get as concentrated a story as you can get.

It's called Pareto distribution. A bell curve. When you have randomness involved in anything where you are doing the same thing over and over, you get a bell curve of outcomes. If you write 100 ideas, 50 of them will be below average. 20 of those ideas will be 4 our of 5 stars, and 1 will be 5 out of 5 stars.

Yes. If you want ONE awesome idea, you need to create and throw out 99 others.

Writing is a numbers game. In the end, no matter how good you are, it's just grinding. So you have all these good ideas and no idea how to use them?

DON'T.

You will write another book. You need to CHERRY PICK THE BEST IDEAS. It is the difference between a writer who's writing is a joke and a writer who is above average. The above average writer NEVER USES ALL HIS IDEAS.

I get it. You worked so hard to come up with the awesome idea. You want to use ALL the awesome ideas. You don't want to waste your time and effort on what you wrote so far. Well, guess what?

BY THE LAW OF AVERAGES, HALF YOUR IDEAS SUCK.

Sorry. You, my friend, are 46 coin flips. 23 from dad, and 23 from mom. This is on top of the random chance your parents met in the first place out of the 7 billion people on the planet. EVERY HUMAN IS AS RANDOM AS IT GETS. Humanity is BORN on a bell curve. This is why, in the end, everything you DO eventually can be tied to a bell curve. This is a fact. Live with it.

You want to slap together a book?
Go with your first ideas.

You want to write a book that slaps?
Write three times what you need, throw out half, and very carefully prune away everything that isn't useful for the final draft.

But do yourself a favor, take a day and transcribe all those loose notes in a text file before you forget them. It doesn't matter what order. Just copy into a big text file and whenever you are stuck, go back and look up ideas. When you use an idea, move it to a file called, "I USED THIS ALREADY."

Over time, if you follow my advice, over the years you will have HUGE folders full of random ideas. So, later, when you are screwed and need to write a full book in a month, you will have a folder FULL of rejected ideas. Statistically speaking, about 20% of those ideas will be useful. I've had to write books in less than a month for an order and thrown shit together from my Idea folder in less than a week. I sometimes sign up for contests and finish everything in a few hours, because I already did 90% of the work in my idea folder.

You do not have "lost progress". You have a cushion of ideas.

it's okay if some ideas are lost. It's okay if you forget shit. You can always write more. You can always come up with more ideas. Trust me. Stop letting this get in the way.

STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW AND COPY EVERYTHING OVER INTO TEXT FILES AND STORE THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER IN AN IDEA FOLDER RIGHT NOW.

In the long run, it is the best thing you can do as a writer to have it as a "cushion" when the crunch is on.

Actually sounds like a good advice, I'll definitely try this one out

 

[minionlover]

Welcome to my writing style.

1. Write three times what you need.
2. Take half of it and put it off to the side in a folder labeled, "IDEAS"
3. Slowly whittle away the remaining 150% to the absolute bare minimum until you get as concentrated a story as you can get.

It's called Pareto distribution. A bell curve. When you have randomness involved in anything where you are doing the same thing over and over, you get a bell curve of outcomes. If you write 100 ideas, 50 of them will be below average. 20 of those ideas will be 4 our of 5 stars, and 1 will be 5 out of 5 stars.

Yes. If you want ONE awesome idea, you need to create and throw out 99 others.

Writing is a numbers game. In the end, no matter how good you are, it's just grinding. So you have all these good ideas and no idea how to use them?

DON'T.

You will write another book. You need to CHERRY PICK THE BEST IDEAS. It is the difference between a writer who's writing is a joke and a writer who is above average. The above average writer NEVER USES ALL HIS IDEAS.

I get it. You worked so hard to come up with the awesome idea. You want to use ALL the awesome ideas. You don't want to waste your time and effort on what you wrote so far. Well, guess what?

BY THE LAW OF AVERAGES, HALF YOUR IDEAS SUCK.

Sorry. You, my friend, are 46 coin flips. 23 from dad, and 23 from mom. This is on top of the random chance your parents met in the first place out of the 7 billion people on the planet. EVERY HUMAN IS AS RANDOM AS IT GETS. Humanity is BORN on a bell curve. This is why, in the end, everything you DO eventually can be tied to a bell curve. This is a fact. Live with it.

You want to slap together a book?
Go with your first ideas.

You want to write a book that slaps?
Write three times what you need, throw out half, and very carefully prune away everything that isn't useful for the final draft.

But do yourself a favor, take a day and transcribe all those loose notes in a text file before you forget them. It doesn't matter what order. Just copy into a big text file and whenever you are stuck, go back and look up ideas. When you use an idea, move it to a file called, "I USED THIS ALREADY."

Over time, if you follow my advice, over the years you will have HUGE folders full of random ideas. So, later, when you are screwed and need to write a full book in a month, you will have a folder FULL of rejected ideas. Statistically speaking, about 20% of those ideas will be useful. I've had to write books in less than a month for an order and thrown shit together from my Idea folder in less than a week. I sometimes sign up for contests and finish everything in a few hours, because I already did 90% of the work in my idea folder.

You do not have "lost progress". You have a cushion of ideas.

it's okay if some ideas are lost. It's okay if you forget shit. You can always write more. You can always come up with more ideas. Trust me. Stop letting this get in the way.

STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW AND COPY EVERYTHING OVER INTO TEXT FILES AND STORE THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER IN AN IDEA FOLDER RIGHT NOW.

In the long run, it is the best thing you can do as a writer to have it as a "cushion" when the crunch is on.

Thank you, that was all really helpful. I'll try to implement your style!

 

[Story_Marc]

I'd recommend organizing everything using mind mapping. Google it for some software. If you have a google account, can use mindmup. It's what I do.

 

[Ninini]

same problem, but I suggest put them in sort later then never sort them

 

[edgy_chuuni]

Don't write it down.
If it's interesting enough you won't froget it.