Confusion to Organization -              Clean Up Your Laptop! 

Considering how haphazardly I live, organization is not a word that frequently passes my lips. I just have too much information, and not enough room/time/energy to organize it all. But during the last few weeks I've been working on Big O 101. Most things around me are falling more-or-less in place.Especially my laptop.I used to fill notebooks with thoughts, ideas, research, menus for the week. The old-old ones were more like journals, full of angst and awakenings, blah blah. Necessary but over. The new ones, though, are a different animal. They are full of things I don't recognize. Names. Lots of numbers that don't mean a thing. Notebooks became jotting books. Need a piece of paper to write down that stupid email address? Write it in the middle of a notebook. Need to add something to the grocery list but don't have a piece of paper handy? Write it in the middle of the notebook.I now prefer to document my writing, research, images, and ideas on my laptop. And you should, too.

I must admit I have kept things in much better order than the days of pen and paper. I keep/download too many things on my desktop, but they all eventually find a folder home of their own. I have folders for Stories, Chapters, Essays - Finished, and Stories, Chapters, Essays - Unfinished. I have a blog folder with dozens of sub-folders. I have folders called Recipes, Resumes, and one called Research (which, by the way, has the largest, oddest assortment of information I've ever seen). Novels have their own folder; inside those are sub-folders of character backgrounds, copy I've cut and couldn't part with, earlier versions from cavemen days, maps of ancient landscapes that may or may not be relevant - all kinds of weird stuff.

I have folders with images: with my downloading prowess I've no doubt got three copies of every photo I've ever downloaded from my phone. I've got photos I've used in blogs, photos I think are cool, photos that are inspiration for other projects, and photos that are just photos.

I've got folders with names of novels I've never finished, folders of novels I've finished, and books I've downloaded and have yet to read. I've got cute little folders such as Girl Things, Books-Music-Words, and Family Cards and Art, and boring ones like Taxes and Birthdays.

Through the years I have carried these folders and documents and images with me, from computer to computer, from flash drive to flash drive. This is the most organized I have been. Much like the journals I kept in my 40s, there is a growth curve here. There is an emotional maturity I've achieved, even though my horizons are as wide open as ever.

I like the fact that this is one area of my life I've been able to categorize. There's something satisfying about opening a pretzel logic database and actually being able to find something. About thumbing through my Research folder and perusing types of trees, Berdruskan Dark, What is Goth, wormholes, and clichés.

So before you start your writing, while you are writing, and for ever more, keep your notes organized. Don't be afraid to cut and save, research, copy, and collect. More folders are better than no folders. Don't be embarrassed to amass a boatload of information - even useless information - when it comes to your passion.

Be sure to keep your laptop organized.And don't forget to always back up your work on a flash drive. Even those notes on Berdruskan Dark!