Folders: The Computer's Version of Project Binders

After last week's post about my system of project binders it was requested that I discuss a little bit about my electronic organization.

I have to admit that I'm more a paper girl than computer but I do have a decent amount of writings on my computer.

That being said, this is the basic layout.  This is the "Documents" folder on my computer.  Separate folders for everything from my designs to school (further divided by term and class), and that last one there on the bottom row is "Writings."







This is my basic folder for all things writing-related.  The folder name is "Writings," funnily enough.

Within it is a folder for each project:

Clockworks and Cogs, the memoir idea I've briefly toyed with (not going anywhere), Lodestar, Poems, Rose (the shorthand version of the title), my Shattered Secrets trilogy that's been in-development for a couple of years, Short stories, and the Sunstone saga (of which Oracles Promise was the first).


I guess I could have Photoshopped the dock out of the screenshot.  Oh well.

This one is the Sunstone folder.  In here, I've got a myriad of things.

With the trilogy/quadrilogy/whatever it would have been, there was a dire need for a good old calendar.  That's the first thing there.  There's a folder for characters (which would have had a file for each character except that I'm more into my paper and pencil), drafts (very important), and one for each of the books in the trilogy.  Each of those folders will contain any number of things related to the folder name.  The folder for Oracles Promise, for example, has two drafts, two versions of an outline, and a file for the word verifications on Blogger, which I used for spells in the book.

This is the folder for my poetry.  (Which has been woefully neglected since graduating with my master's degree.)

Most of this folder is given over to the individual files (one poem per file).

But see that little blue folder right there?  Thats' where my uber-organization comes in.  Inside that folder is a set of files, one for each of the many poetry collections I have rolling around inside my head.  That folder is titled, cleverly I might add, "Chapbook and Book MS mockups."

I make excellent use of a tiered system.  The first folder is the broadest, narrowing folder by folder until you run out of ideas for categories to sort things into.