Forum / All this stuff on my computer

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  Nonnie Augustine

  Dec 11, 03:41pm

  I took a poetry workshop a few years ago with the remarkable Carolyn Forché. Brilliant teacher. One thing though—she said to keep everything. Maybe that's a reasonable thing to do when you are someone with a mind as good as hers. Maybe she can even organize her computer, paper files, journals (okay, they are not so hard; just stack 'em up somewhere.) She even did scrapbooks. But what I have is a mess and I want to clean it up. My system is non-existent. Who does a good job at this? Can anyone help?

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  Mathew Paust

  Dec 12, 01:36pm

  I make folders for different topics. Makes things easier to find.

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  Nonnie Augustine

  Dec 12, 06:45pm

  Your method reminded me that you had a career in journalism, n'cest pas?

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  Ann Bogle

  Dec 12, 11:52pm

  Early on I had a system for stories. There was a folder marked boy stories and one marked girl stories and one marked group stories and one marked Ann's Homeschool. I was in school then -- college -- and it touches me that I found time for homeschool besides. The stories were all in third person. Folders for poems are alphabetical going by title or initial word in first line. Notebooks are in chronological order. Some got a little wet in my basement one year. I think they're dry now and a little warped. I haven't reread the journals. Lucinda Kempe stoutly believes in reading the journals. I need to take her advice, maybe this winter. I forgot to mention that I have folders of unmailed letters alphabetized by intended recipient. I had discovered that I write a better journal with a single audience member in mind.

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  Nonnie Augustine

  Dec 15, 03:21pm

  You sound so organized, Ann! Have you kept up the girl stories and boy stories classification? I was thinking about re-reading my journals this winter, too.
  Organizing my poems is beyond me, except for the ones that got into a book. Those have a place that I can get back to easily.

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  Erika Byrne-Ludwig

  Dec 15, 11:33pm

  30 years ago I did a lot of writing, including a novel. I burned my novel because it irritated me but kept my stories. I stopped writing for 30 years. Now I regret anything I discarded then. I could revise it now, and out of the novel make many short stories. It wasn't to be.

  Keep every piece of writing in any way you like but keep it. My advice.

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  Adam Sifre

  Dec 19, 10:12pm

  There is no real solution to this problem. This is why I think the whole computer thing is a fad.

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  Nonnie Augustine

  Dec 22, 03:34pm

  I'm with you, Adam.

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