Michelle! Thank you so much for giving my writing a shout out. This totally made my day. 🥰 I always love seeing your round ups. And I LOVE Abbott Elementary - it is such a sweet, funny, and perfect escape-reality show haha.
And I feel you on the organizational stuff. I like the idea of just having one document to show up to. I set up a separate gmail for all my writing related things, so the only things I get in that email are from Sustenance, substack newsletters, and any submissions-related stuff, which has helped my brain a bit. And in that drive I have a few folders for poetry, CNF, substack..but still I am always forgetting where the most recent drafts are and things like that. I tried having one master document with links to each piece I write in separate documents where I work on edits, but I don't really know if it's working. I need organizational support too lol.
So beyond happy to share it! It's a beautiful piece.
(I still can't get over how sweet Abbott Elementary is, and how much I love all the characters. I'm already dreading getting fully caught up and running out of episodes to watch! 😂)
I loveee the idea of having an email address dedicated solely to writing-related things. I can also definitely can commiserate about not being able to find recent drafts 🥴 I spent some time setting up a little ecosystem over the weekend that I'm feeling optimistic about. Will definitely share more here if I can stick with it, and it proves effective...
I second the question on organizational tools. Maybe we could have Joy talk us through her system sometime! What's feeding me recently is reading some fluff books that are entertaining but need very little brain power. My winter version of a beach read I guess!
Oh man, I love getting sneak peeks into other people's systems (nothing like a real-life example to get me inspired), and getting to see how Joy keeps her writing life organized would be the dream!
And YAY for winter beach reads! Any favorites so far?
Right now I'm reading the Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore. The storyline is so obvious, but it makes it easy and comforting! It's like a hallmark movie in a book!
I just started What the River Knows, a historical fantasy set in 1800s Egypt, and I am SO INTO THIS BOOK.
I'm still going hard in the Notion space, and what helped me organize the most was being held accountable by my writing coach (lol) and using categories I sourced from my readers of what kind of writing I do. It was a fun practice at the very least, and a suuper helpful way to organize my writing at best!
I definitely didn't have 'historical fantasy book set int 1800s Egypt' on my bingo card, and I LOVE this for you!
I love that you've made Notion your home for all your writerly things. It makes my heart so happy. 🤍 From a purely aesthetic place, I struggle to draft in Notion for some reason but I use it for basically everything else in my life.
You've absolutely inspired me to think seriously about a writing coach, when the time feels right. I love that she gave you the idea to source categories from your readers! Brilliant. And that extra accountability from having a coach is everythinggggg.
I do separate google docs when I do free writing. Then they are named with the date and a few key themes or words. So I can go back and copy and paste things into a new doc when I’m ready to transform it into something more polished. Sometimes they are just labeled personal journaling and just stay untouched, I put all of the docs from the year in the same folder on drive.
I loveee a simple yet methodical system like this. There's also something I aesthetically really enjoy about writing in Google Docs. I just start getting itchy when the system starts to grow, and I start losing track of where I put things 🥴 It sounds like you've really dialed in something that works for you—the dream!
Great round up, and I can’t wait to check some of these things out that I missed! I also have a giant Google Doc where I try to put everything because at least I know I have it to come back to (vs my previous method of having one million individual notes on my notes app haha). Will be curious to follow along on your organization methods!
Why can't there just be a silver-bullet solution to our 'where on earth did I write that thing down' writing woes, that isn't one huge unwieldy Google Doc?! 😂
Michelle! Thank you so much for giving my writing a shout out. This totally made my day. 🥰 I always love seeing your round ups. And I LOVE Abbott Elementary - it is such a sweet, funny, and perfect escape-reality show haha.
And I feel you on the organizational stuff. I like the idea of just having one document to show up to. I set up a separate gmail for all my writing related things, so the only things I get in that email are from Sustenance, substack newsletters, and any submissions-related stuff, which has helped my brain a bit. And in that drive I have a few folders for poetry, CNF, substack..but still I am always forgetting where the most recent drafts are and things like that. I tried having one master document with links to each piece I write in separate documents where I work on edits, but I don't really know if it's working. I need organizational support too lol.
So beyond happy to share it! It's a beautiful piece.
(I still can't get over how sweet Abbott Elementary is, and how much I love all the characters. I'm already dreading getting fully caught up and running out of episodes to watch! 😂)
I loveee the idea of having an email address dedicated solely to writing-related things. I can also definitely can commiserate about not being able to find recent drafts 🥴 I spent some time setting up a little ecosystem over the weekend that I'm feeling optimistic about. Will definitely share more here if I can stick with it, and it proves effective...
I second the question on organizational tools. Maybe we could have Joy talk us through her system sometime! What's feeding me recently is reading some fluff books that are entertaining but need very little brain power. My winter version of a beach read I guess!
Oh man, I love getting sneak peeks into other people's systems (nothing like a real-life example to get me inspired), and getting to see how Joy keeps her writing life organized would be the dream!
And YAY for winter beach reads! Any favorites so far?
Right now I'm reading the Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore. The storyline is so obvious, but it makes it easy and comforting! It's like a hallmark movie in a book!
I just started What the River Knows, a historical fantasy set in 1800s Egypt, and I am SO INTO THIS BOOK.
I'm still going hard in the Notion space, and what helped me organize the most was being held accountable by my writing coach (lol) and using categories I sourced from my readers of what kind of writing I do. It was a fun practice at the very least, and a suuper helpful way to organize my writing at best!
I definitely didn't have 'historical fantasy book set int 1800s Egypt' on my bingo card, and I LOVE this for you!
I love that you've made Notion your home for all your writerly things. It makes my heart so happy. 🤍 From a purely aesthetic place, I struggle to draft in Notion for some reason but I use it for basically everything else in my life.
You've absolutely inspired me to think seriously about a writing coach, when the time feels right. I love that she gave you the idea to source categories from your readers! Brilliant. And that extra accountability from having a coach is everythinggggg.
I do separate google docs when I do free writing. Then they are named with the date and a few key themes or words. So I can go back and copy and paste things into a new doc when I’m ready to transform it into something more polished. Sometimes they are just labeled personal journaling and just stay untouched, I put all of the docs from the year in the same folder on drive.
I loveee a simple yet methodical system like this. There's also something I aesthetically really enjoy about writing in Google Docs. I just start getting itchy when the system starts to grow, and I start losing track of where I put things 🥴 It sounds like you've really dialed in something that works for you—the dream!
I’m sure one day I’ll outgrow it. But it works for now!
Great round up, and I can’t wait to check some of these things out that I missed! I also have a giant Google Doc where I try to put everything because at least I know I have it to come back to (vs my previous method of having one million individual notes on my notes app haha). Will be curious to follow along on your organization methods!
Why can't there just be a silver-bullet solution to our 'where on earth did I write that thing down' writing woes, that isn't one huge unwieldy Google Doc?! 😂
Seriously! Still an upgrade from when I used Microsoft Word and lost a 30 page short story because I forgot to save it 😅 whoopsie
OMG the way my whole body seized up reading that ... nightmare scenario!