by Caroline Tigeress

Created on: October 24, 2009

Basic organization of your writing is not a difficult task, but one that should be taken quite seriously. My methodology for this is to use a few file folders and a spreadsheet.
I have one file folder that has every article and short story I've ever written in it. This I consistently archive in an on-line server so that should something disastrous happen to my hard drive, I can re-download the file and take up from where I left off. I call this my, 'master' folder and whenever I write something new and call it polished it goes in there.

From there, I recognize where on Helium it can go, if appropriate. Usually I begin my writing day by rating to get a feel for what's going on in the community. As I favor writing short stories more than non-fiction, but recognize the commercial value of non-fiction, I try to balance everything out as much as I can.
So let's get to the spreadsheet. In the left-hand column is my title for the piece. Helium has its own title, but I give all of my works my personal title they are mine, after all. In the column next to that is the word count. Now that might seem a little anal, but all of us writers have our quirks. Bare with me, I'll explain.
My personal theory is to then dissect the article and see if there are other categories that it could go into. These categories will eventually become books when their word count gets to a certain level. Do you see where I'm going with this?
I'm getting the maximum mileage from every article, and ever story, even if they don't hit helium. I have categories ranging from erotica (all flavors) to the supernatural. I sub categorize as much as possible, attempting to find relevant topics so that a reader who is looking for a specific book topic gets what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. This increases my reader base, because as a rule once someone picks up one of your books and likes it, they have a tendency to follow an author.
So let's take the article you're reading right now and I'll let you know how I've categorized it.
First off, it's a Helium article. I put its word count in the Helium Column. That's sort of my catch all because only about seventy-five percent of what I write is suitable for Helium.
I then look at it critically and decide it could easily be an essay of sorts, even though it's not categorized in that manner on Helium. Put word count in the Essays column.
In more critical terms, it's not merely an essay, but a tutorial about organizing words and the craft of writing

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