Compile and organize your creative ideas so you're never without a plot or character when you need one.

Difficulty Level: average      Time Required: 30 minutes to start

1. Start by collecting any slips of paper or pages where you've written ideas for your novel, short story, screenplay, poetry, or greeting cards.
2. Decide where you want to organize your thoughts: on the computer, in written notebooks, or in a file box.
3. Establish as many subdivisions as you need, using dividers, tabs, or separate computer files and documents.
4. Now label those divisions as befits your work: plot, character, title, first line, description, dialogue, theme, setting, etc.
5. If you work in different genres or do several kinds of writing, devise a notebook system for each one.
6. Computer notebooks work well for organizing or sorting ideas alphabetically. Global search is a big help, too.
7. Looseleaf notebooks and index cards are easy to pack and rearrange.
8. Do leaf through your idea notebooks regularly. Use secondary ideas for exercises or warm-ups.
9. Daily or weekly, write down -- in list or narrative form -- where you are with each of your writing projects. Is anything holding you back? Assess your progress.
   

1. If you still end up with small loose scraps of paper, just try to collect them in one place.
2. Don't spend more time than you want to spend in filing and organizing ideas. Some writers put two ideas together at random to begin new pieces.
3. Use your private journals to enhance creativity, as suggested in Harvesting Your Journals, by Rosalie Deer Heart and Alison Strickland