I like forms and spreadsheets and lists and so I’ve always had some kind of tracker for my writing, whether it be project profiles or an archived list of projects with their basic details listed (genre, audience, size etc.) and a colour code that tells me whether they’re a major focus, a minor focus, have potential or I’m just excited to do them. There are a few other keys that have changed over time but that’s generally how they’ve been.

Today I went back through my spreadsheet to update it properly and was surprised at the difference in key marking compared to my written project archive from back in 2018. The major difference is in my ‘Engagement Key’. This combines what I see as a focus (major or minor) and my feelings towards the pieces. From the years 2009 to 2017 (or thereabouts) there was a lot of different smaller projects that I had. There were files everywhere on my writing USB and most of them were just ideas that I never even developed past a key concept. In 2018 I did a great cull of them but still hoarded everything and now in 2020, the new marked up archive with my Engagement Key shows that I’m willing to axe almost half of my work. I’m hoping that this is a sign of growth in my writing, as I’m starting to develop ideas into something substantial or at least put them in a notebook rather than keep up the pretence I’m writing anything about them.

My Excel sheet tracks word count, draft number, percentage of word count achieved, engagement, size key, the last time they were edited, what year they were created in etc. and now there are a lot of grey lines where I’ve decided that I don’t need to keep holding onto projects like a hoarder. I need to properly dedicate my time to the ideas that now bloom rather than those one-liners I wrote back in high school and remember only when I see its file. My writing style and interests have also shifted since then and so there are now old project ideas that I either see no potential in, no point in me writing because I don’t actually have the experience to back it up and projects that are too similar to one another because of the writing phases I went through. Sometimes I take these and work on ways to combine them, weaving the different plot lines into one better work. Now that I’m older and a better writer, I find that ideas come to me in a more ‘sophisticated manner’. It’s very much:

What Life I Want to Live ⇒ What Stories do I think People would Like to Read

My motivation for writing has shifted slightly, but I think that’s a topic for another post.

It feels quite refreshing and healthy doing an overhaul of my writing archives and the digital files (it’s going to make transferring into Scrivener a tad easier). It’s like doing a Spring clean. I think it also shows me a small look at how I’ve changed as a writer and motivates me to work a little harder.

There’s also another sheet attached that tracks my writing project and lets me know if I’m hitting my targets and how much writing is being done compare to previous months. Needless to say, it looks a little sad at the moment. Red and orange everywhere instead of the green light.

My biggest issue with work archives and files is that I can’t make up my mind if I want to do it digitally or by hand. Truthfully, I try to do both but it’s not as simple as I would like it. There are perks to both. I’ll be interested to see how I manage my writing in ten years from now. Hopefully, I’ll have seen some fruits of my labour by then!