In the Trenches: 5 Things to Organize the New Writer


I am pursuing things to organize a way to better define my time. The method is inspired by a cleaning practice.
Here: https://youtu.be/Pe9NBn67yxU
The video by KC Davis explains the ‘5 Things Tidying Method’. This way of thinking about the contents of a room has helped me enormously on the whole “OMGwheredoIstart” problem.

I also have a problem with time management. There are tons of places out there to give you all kinds of methodologies from simplistic to complex. However, I have found that most of those are hard for me to enact on a daily, and (let’s be honest) hourly basis.

Then I started thinking about the video above and the phrase “only 5 things” started bouncing around in my head.
The result of that rattle was a short list (5 items) that pretty much contains my activities in a day.

Reading – pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway.
I have a ton of reading to catch up on, especially in the fantasy/fiction area. For the last several years, my reading has leaned to politics, sociology, psychology, and history.
In addition, there is all that ‘craft’ that I am still working to improve.

Writing – I have so many stories and not enough time.
Also in this corner are summaries, query letters, reviews, blog posts (!), etc.

Researching – As a fiction writer what do you have to research? Oh, my dears, a lot. If you’re talking science fiction, you had better know your science. If you are talking historical fiction, you had better know your history. Moreover, apart from being versed in your own genre, you need to research publishers, agents, trends, sales.

Reviewing – Or by another name Editing! The category of reviewing includes other items, not just your own manuscript. Helping other writers by giving critiques, beta reading. That stuff falls into this bucket as well.

Refueling – Although this category can be written off as the ‘catch-all’, I don’t think of it that way. These are all the things I do to support my writing, which don’t involve any of the above. Taking care of all categories of my health. Caring for my environment, the apparatus and systems, which makes it possible to dedicate time to write.

How’s it working? I’ll let you know in a bit.
Fingers crossed.



3 responses to “In the Trenches: 5 Things to Organize the New Writer”

  1. Only 9:30, and this is the second nudge of the day to find some structure and stop wasting my days on trivia!

    I can certainly handle five things…right?!

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