By Liz, currently organizing files on a new laptop…
I had to buy a new laptop recently, which gave me a chance to eliminate the INSANE amount of files that had taken up residence on my old one, the result of six years of downloading and saving stuff that I would “deal with later.”
Sigh. As you can imagine, later never came. So I’m starting fresh and trying to organize what I have and where it should live and eliminating the dupes – apparently I was super paranoid about losing things so I saved them in three clouds, one phsyical backup and multiple locations on the actual computer.
In any event, this digital organization project had me looking through old writing projects and thinking about which ones needed to be rejuvenated and which ones needed to be, well, deleted. The more final version of living in a drawer forever. I found one project that deserves a second look, or at least the characters do. And others that will go sit in that trash bin until I remember to virtually empty it.
So I’m wondering, Wickeds, do you have any writing projects that need a spring cleaning/fresh look?
Edith/Maddie: I have a number of short stories I’ve started and never finished. I would never put them in the trash, though. You never know what you can dust off, repurpose, and find a home for.
Julie: I am working on getting all of my writing ideas in one place. I have some in google drives, some on my phone, others in Dropbox. Like Edith, I’ll never delete, but I will take notes and see how I can refresh.
Jessie: I am paranoid too, Liz! In addition to backing everything up all over the place, I email my manuscripts to myself and my kids so that there is some chance it will be safe somewhere in case of catastrophe! I don’t have anything old that needs a refresh, but I am buffing and polishing something current. It does feel like a breath of spring air to make it shine!
Barb: My writing projects are pretty well organized. I have a digital folder for each book, novella, or story. In it goes everything related to the title from Scrivener drafts to copy-edits to related publicity stuff like lists of blog topics and cover art. When the active period for the book is over, that all goes in Maine Clambake folder (or other series or short story folder). Paper files like notes, outlines, research stuff, hand-drawn maps and timelines go in a Circa notebook. Everything I’ve ever written has been published. (Weird, I know.) However, I’m about to undertake a major project in my study to clean out physical files and boxes on other topics. It’s time for some of that stuff to go.
Sherry: Sigh, Barb, you are so freaking organized. I just looked in a file on my desktop called Writing. It has six different series ideas, a recipe for crockpot chicken, some random photos, and copy edits for one of the Sarah books. And there’s a box in the closest of my study that has tons of notes from writings classes, drafts of never published books, and who knows what else. I’m afraid to look.
Readers, are you spring cleaning any special projects you’ve started?
The Wickeds 
I’m in dire need of spring cleaning, both digital and physical. I’m currently juggling three writing projects (one draft of a book that isn’t due until December and two sets of edits that are due…GULP…soon). As soon as I get that down to one project, I’m going full-scale spring cleaning.
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The garage- Winter’s aftermath! Months of stacking stuff I didn’t feel like dealing with. My website with our new acoustic songs. Still learning them buttons!
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Ugh. We all commiserate! And digital files are so out of sight until out have to deal with them. Worse than that freezer issue.
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I’m sort of obsessive about keeping things organized digitally. Actually, there’s no “sort of” about it. I think it’s a spill-over from the day job. I’m like Barb with my writing. Each series has a folder, each book within that series, and then folders for working, production, and promotion. I have a folder for all of my short stories, each one in it’s own folder. I have a few half-baked projects. A couple will probably never see the light of day (although I won’t delete them), but one is the basis for the future project that has taken root in my brain.
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My files on my computer get going through the first of each year – or that’s my goal. Most importantly for me are the photo files. As my camera skills improve, the photos I once thought of a keepers may end up being why did I keep that, but sometimes it’s still hard to turn loose of something I captured that froze that moment in time.
Spring always reminds me of starting fresh. To do that for me, means going through things and making sure clutter is eliminated. Building our forever home to our dream vision has us living in a huge one bedroom with one huge closet. You would think there’d be no way to have clutter or excess items – wrong. It’s amazing what can be stuck back to go through later or thinking it would be of use sometime. Old habits are hard to break sometimes. So every new year, I go through things with new eyes to declutter and get rid of some of those things I thought I’d use last year. It always amazing me how much more I can get rid of each year as things become just that T-H-I-N-G-S. But it’s really refreshing to start off with a clean slate so to speak with resolve it won’t happen again. Yeah right! 🙂
2clowns at arkansas dot net
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Happy Spring cleaning, Cate! I have almost donated 3/4’s of my clothes. After I retired 7 years ago, and had a health issue, I lost a lot of weight, and now I can eat anything and not gain weight…what a problem to have, right? So, my wonderful closet sat jam packed and when I had a more formal occasion I really did have “nothing to wear”. Little by little I have been donating my clothes to local thrift stores, and I am buying essentials in a size small. Purging has been “liberating”. I still need to donate my Jhane Barnes shirt collection…I hope I can let them go… JOY! Luis at ole dot travel
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When my husband lost a lot of weight post-retirement I made him go out and buy one suit. I said, “You have notice for a wedding but not for a funeral, so you need one dark suit.” Like you, I’m good about keeping my clothes moving. I started originally because I learned that poorer women were often larger sizes like I am and agencies had trouble finding things like job interview clothes for clients. Of course, nowadays, you can go to a job interview (or a funeral) in your pajamas. It doesn’t make me grumpy but it makes me a little sad.
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Curiosity question for Edith: if all your “never throw it away pile” were paper, would you still keep it?
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I’m not sure if I should admit to how many piles of paper I have around! The files I was talking about are short stories, so yes, I would keep them. I do have LOTS of paper I could get rid of if I just organized them and shredded the years of past tax and bank statements….
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Thank you, Edith. Paper was one of the hard things to handle when I moved to Florida in 2020…30 years of my own “grownup stuff”, supplemented by stuff taken from my parents’ home (an accumulation of over 70 years). I’ve gotten very good at “tossing”. Probably would not toss so freely if I were not an only child with no biological family left. Take good care.
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Funny this topic has come up today. I’ve been surfing through old files on my computer recently. Not to organize anything, but to walk down memory lane. (When I should be going to bed. I don’t know why going to bed is so difficult for me.)
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I recently got rid of clothes, exercise equipment that I will never use again and so much more. Now we have a box of old computer stuff that we need to go through to give to the computer museum here for parts. Also, we cleaned out the car and have two boxes of stuff to go through and keep or get rid of. But I have so much of my family’s histories in paper that I need to organize and not get rid of. It seems that I did a lot, but it doesn’t look like it. Keep up the good work and the great books for me to read instead of purging.
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