I’ve never had a proper one all the years (and in any of the places) that I’ve had a blog – and just today I went to click on a person’s name that I was positive was on the little bit of a blogroll that I do have. And it wasn’t there. Anywhere.

Pretty embarrassing considering that I am planning to use one of his posts as a starting point for a series of posts once things quiet down here, as a way to sort of ease back into non hit-and-run writing (I have added the link now, though, lol.)

It seems that in between that I need to tackle this whole linking business… I have loads of room in the sidebars there, no reason not to. Except natural inability, that is. Sigh

 (graphic from here)

So far, that’s working out well, for classes anyway. While grades don’t mean much in the overall scheme of things, particularly at my age and time of life, it pains me to get anything less than an A (or maybe an A-), so even though I find much of the material boring, I do it. And I am learning what I wanted to learn, so all’s good.

And one thing I am learning to like and, better yet, use, is outlining. I’ve resisted that for years, for what reason I don’t know. Perhaps I felt it stifled creativity, or that “real writers” should be able to just sit down and rattle things off and wind up with masterpieces. No doubt some can, but I am coming to the conclusion that I am not one of them. Usually. Okay, sometimes I can get inspired and write thoughts as they come and what comes out may not be pretty or grammatically correct but the passion is there, and that calls to some people in some way. Or like now, when I’m just pretty much thinking out loud, this is easy.
(graphic via How to Podcast)

However, writing with intent, that’s where I’ve always had trouble, I guess because of the way my mind works. See, I can have a hurricane of a brainstorm and make mind maps that look like the spawn of Medusa, but after that I’m stuck. How do I get all that mess from there to here? This is why I am not good at anagrams and have a tough time figuring out vanity license plates sometimes. Jumbled letters are just jumbled letters to me. If I really work at it, I can make some puny words out of them but I remain in awe of people who can take one look and pluck out a ten letter word, or something.

Anyway, it’s the same when I look at my mind maps, or any like thing. I am intimidated and feel hopeless that I can ever put anything together from them, so most often they languish somewhere on my computer until they die. Or until my computer does, which used to happen all the time.

So, back to outlining. I think that might be the answer. If I can, with a brain map or just scribbles on a notepad, let my thoughts roam and create and come up with ideas and connections and then corral it all into a full sentence outline, I believe I will then be able to just sit down and write what I intend. And finish it, because I will already have all that main parts. It will take, though, a commitment of time and discipline, but it will be worth it if I can then write something of substance or can just say things I’ve wanted to say.

I’m going to try it, anyway.

 Adam & Eve / The Scrap Paper Project – Gordon Wiebe

Of course writers through the ages have come up with that same solution – and, being the creative folks they are, have also come up with a gazillion different ways to make it work for them. Thought pots, idea traps, journals, what have you, are very personal, and until you find the one that fits how you work and think – if my experience is anything to go by – you’ll start channeling your inner Goldilocks, hopping from chair to chair to find the best tush cushion.

Me, I tried paper notebooks/journals (I can’t read my writing), desktop diaries (a couple of computer crashes cured me of that one), Evernote and OneNote (too scattered and mixed in with other stuff) and different online organizers (great for remembering stuff, but not for this, for me). And who knows what else… I read a few  writing blogs and just about any suggestion or blogger’s personal solution, I’d try it. Or at least think about it until the urge to throw even more time to the winds moved on.

But, you know – I think I’ve finally hit on the almost perfect system for me. And, best of all, as of today there are 55 posts in my drafts folder, but they have lost their power to frighten me into silence – or, worse, bumbling speech – whenever I think of them.

See, on querying myself (instead of everyone else) I realized that my stuff winds up scattered here, there and everywhere because that’s where I need it to be. Logistically, but creatively as well. What I craved was not a way to corral my thoughts, to get them into some sort of order. I needed a way for them run wild and free, to roam in the wide open spaces and peer into the dark corners, be silly or catty, or to just flop down and lay there watching the carousel of clouds floating across the sky.

Ahem. In other words, I wanted a virtual messy desk, complete with corkboard and somewhere to slap up the sticky notes of scribbled, incomplete ideas that just pop into my head. One that I could take with me everywhere, and access from anywhere. The solution, of course, was so simple , so obvious, that I think it qualifies as yet another “duh!” moment.

Create a blog. A place not so much for writing as for the not yet written – the scribbled, the inane, the half-thought out speck of genius, the better off not said, the anything and everything that might maybe be used one day, sooner or later. A place where posts don’t glare at me in silent rebuke for their undone state, because when they are in this one spot they are supposed to be unfinished!  How perfect is that?

That was a beginning, but I still needed a way to have this repository with me, and have access to it, almost anywhere I was. Simple enough, that, as well.

First, I created the blog using WordPress and set it as private. I named it; that seemed like an important step to me, so that I would know it was just for writing. I use Windows Live Writer for blogging but for catching stray thoughts when I am surfing the web or doing just about anything else on the computer, I needed something different, something separate.

Since I use the Firefox browser, the Firefox add-on Scribefire seemed like it would be a perfect fit; it can be used offline (just save whatever you post as “note”) or online, so that items go directly to the site. The only blog set up on Scribefire is the one for the bits of writing, so that I can just write and not have to think or worry about sending gibberish to the wrong blog when something strikes.

I also have WordPress on my Blackberry, so I can send badly typed notes to the blog from there, ready for deciphering later.

The best part of all this is – what I write to the blog from one place propagates to all the others so that, even if I never visit the site itself, it acts as a sort of central idea station. My disconnected blatherings are all right at my fingertips, so that wherever I am I can scroll through and see if anything yells out that it’s ready to head for the finishing room.

All this lets me send stuff from anywhere and then forget it. No drafts, these – all published posts. Granted, I am the only one that can see them, but it still makes a difference in my puny brain. 

I say my system is almost perfect because I’d like the ability to just visit the front page of the site and have the posts randomized, whenever I reload the page. Like shuffling index cards or something. I’m pretty sure there is a way to do this, and I’ll check that out next. Once I can do that, it’ll still be almost perfect, but at least closer to my ideal.

Maybe.

As you can see (if you click the link) Springpad is a highly flexible online organizer, notebook, search engine (kinda – there are apps for searching for books, or businesses, or restaurants and all sorts of things) and it’s really fun to play with once you get the hang of it.

But will it work for what I need it to do? That’s the question! And it’s one I plan to answer this week, as I use Springpad (just about) exclusively for the things I need to do this week. It has a web bookmarklet which will allow me to capture photos and text, as well as video files, Jeff says, which I need to do from time to time. Also, I *think* you can set alerts for tasks and such, but I still have to investigate that.

One thing that occurred to me last night, that I could really use this for is the whole financial aid/scholarships and stuff thing. I am old and just not coordinated enough to remember what to submit when, and how and all that. If I can figure out how to capture (or “spring”) the scholarship/grant information as I come across it, and at the same time set a timer thing to alert me close to when it is due, and then just forget about it till then, I will love them forever, I think.

Anyway, I pass no judgments yet. Well, I do – I would already recommend it to anyone who needs just a general online organizer, that is really customizable. But I will see if it is useful enough to me to replace at least a couple of my other organizers and report back on that. So, I’ll use it this week, and probably post random complaints (I always have them, is this not so? I have some now! but I am refraining. After all, we just met.) and suggestions through the week and then do a write-up next weekend of my experiences.

Hopefully in a more organized, professional manner and not just random free thought, etc

I thought, maybe, I had found it with OneNote. Endless little notebooks, tagging, the ability to really easily make tables, and all sorts of stuff. I admit, evil though Microsoft may be, I gotta have my OneNote.

Except.

I also have to have my Evernote. It’s far easier to find things in it, with the tagging system and there are fewer clicks when going through all the stuff I’ve gathered because it’s all, truly, in one long note (per notebook). No little tabs or anything. For research – or, really, for compiling the information that I am using for research, that I can access from anywhere, I find Evernote invaluable. Also, it is free.

However.

I feel incomplete when I don’t have the Firefox plugin, Scrapbook. It’s an oldie(ish) but goodie (and old-shoe familiar for me), and simply excellent, in my view, for just clicking quickly, annotating and storing masses of information gathered from various places online. Either the whole page or just a snippet. (There are online services good for that too, but I need my information available offline.)

To be fair, the other two programs do much the same, although I have not been able to get a OneNote clipper to work in Firefox.Evernote does, with no problem. But I can’t really organize on the fly (with Evernote OR OneNote), which I need to do, being far too scatterbrained to go back and do it later, which is where I value Scrapbook.

But.

Scrapbook doesn’t have an online backing up of stuff server (so far as I know). With Evernote, everything I save offline is also saved online when it next syncs with the server. I’ve had soooo many computer crashes over the years that this is a necessity for me, because I’ve just lost too much work.

Like I’ve, apparently, lost a lot of the history research I had been doing and storing in Scrapbook. I thought I had backed up these items to my online storage server (yet another tendril of my organizational web), but when I finally remembered that  and went to check earlier today – well, either I somehow erased the stuff, or I didn’t actually put the items in this particular online storage in the first place,. In which case… where the heck DID I put them?

So, you see.

I need an organizer to organize my organizers so I can keep track of just what I am organizing where. And why.

Sigh.