Organizing to Write

Organized (Photo credit: Librarian by Day)

Okay, I watched too much “Blue’s Clues” with my daughter when she was a toddler and use the phrase, “handy dandy notebook.”  Can’t help myself.  Well, while perusing my handy dandy notebooks and books about writing, I have been using a bunch of those little flag post its to mark important or interesting things.

I am almost done with the library’s copy of the 2010 Writer’s Market book.  Love the book, but will have to wait to own a copy when budget will allow.  The past few days, I wrote down information for the magazines from the pages I had flagged as possibilities for places to submit articles.  I didn’t write down everything.  Just wrote down things like title, web address, type of writing accepted, word limits, and if accepted poems.

Things do change with time though.  I went to some of the websites and some magazines are no longer accepting submissions or no longer pay for submissions.  I’m updating the list as I go, noting changes, and have gone online to print submission guidelines for some magazines I am really interested in submitting to in the near future.  

In the notebooks I flagged interesting tidbits as well as things I had written, but had not typed into the computer yet.  I’m a little guilty of writing things randomly through my notebooks such as a website link in the margin if I run across an interesting one.  So another project I have done the past few days is try to transfer a lot of the information from my notebooks into the computer in a more organized manner.  I have a form I’m filling out for article writing ideas, a list of writing contests, and another list for helpful websites.  The system I use is after I type the information from a page I flagged, then I remove the flag.  Hopefully, eventually the notebook will be flag free.     

I have still been writing this week, but not really submitted much of anything.  It’s okay though, because I feel the time I am spending on getting somewhat organized will pay off in the long run.  If nothing else, but a little sanity. 

I’ll leave you with a link.  I’ve played around with a few different free organizers and found one I like.  It is HiTask at hitask.com.  It is free, has a calendar, and I can do a to do list for each different project I have I am working on. 

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