WIP check-in: Day 24

[barbayat]

Saturday - End of our week so to speak. And did you reach your weekly goals? How do you feel about this week looking back?


So did you

... write?
... edit?
... researched?
... procrastinating?
... cleaned up the holiday mess?
... did something else?


Discussion Topic

How do you manage your fanfic and ff wips offline? Do you back up your stories? Do you post them somewhere only you can see them? Have one story in one document or many chapters in individual folders?

Comments

[lielac]

Pffha. I just wrote a shenanigansy little thing, 873 words or so of drunkenness, kissing, and mango-scented explosions. Okay, mostly it was drunkenness and mango-scented explosions, but kissing featured.

[cirque]

No writing today :( been feeling more ill than usual so I've had a nice duvet day spent reading a lovely and long fic that has given me many happy!feels.

I have a folder in my documents called 'fanfic' but beyond that everything is just left to fend for itself. I really have minimal organisation skills, it's a wonder I ever get any of my WIPs finished at all.

[lilly_c]

I got some bad news earlier today so I took a wee break from the fic. Should be able to get back to it tomorrow.

My main WIPs have 2 word files each, 1 with the actual fic and 1 with the notes, outline, playlist etc. For one-shots and drabbles I tend to just lump them onto the same file even when they're in different fandoms, purely done because I'm often too lazy to create a seperate file for each new fic.

[laceblade]

Today was pretty hard, but I ended up making my word count.

My fic is long & I'm working on lots of chapters at once (with some with different betas).
When at home, I write the fic in Scrivener. Scrivener sort of treats each chapter as a separate "document" even though it's all one file. I can also have sub-folders with tons of notes.

I also paste everything I write in a day into 750words.com, which serves as once back-up.

I keep files in Evernote (so I can access it in a browser or on my phone) of each chapter of the fic, my outline, AO3 notes I want to include, character notes, etc. I also save relevant news articles into Evernote by embedding it in my browser (my fic involves the CIA, so current events = good!).

When working with beta readers, I'll paste a chapter into Google. Each chapter gets named "[fic title] [chapter number] [date I'm sending it to beta]" so I can keep them all straight, ^^;

Lastly, & most basic, I use a pad of graph paper for jotting notes at work - and then type them up as soon as I get home, obviously.

[cirque]

Wow you are so organised! I'm kind of in awe, but at the same time maintaining that amount of organisation with my writing terrifies me. I wish I could be like you and have various folders and back ups etc, but even when I was studying writing at university I was a scatterbrained mess. I'm envious of your system! :D

[laceblade]

Part of it is necessity! I have like 40k words to keep track of, and writing when I'm bored at work can make it hard :[
BUT it's only within this past year that my writing files has become so organized! It can be learned!

[cirque]

40k words does sound hard to keep track of. Most of my projects are ~10k and I work on them very sporadically.

I do hope I can learn to be more organised! I used to have separate folders for each project but it didn't take long for things to get saved in wrong folders... a nightmare, haha!

[linaewen]

I did nothing writing related today.

I use Jarte to write and organize my WIP chapters. I have Jarte on my computer and also on a flash drive which I keep up to date as a back up and also as a portable writing project folder if I'm going to be somewhere where I don't have my own computer but might have opportunity to write. I have my writing files in one big folder of writing projects, which is organized by subfolders for each story I'm working on (as well as future story ideas that won't leave me alone but which I'm not writing at the moment). Those folders contain the individual WIP chapters for each story as well as outlines, research notes, idea lists, maps and pictures that help with my writing. As I complete a chapter for each of the stories, I add it to a larger document (also saved in the appropriate folder) that has the complete story to date, which I read through from time to time and tweak the editing or fix small errors or inconsistencies that have cropped up.

I also back up the files regularly on an external back up drive, and I'm considering putting my writing folder online somewhere or uploading to a cloud so I have access from anywhere in case my flash drive fails me.