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Jan 26
How to Effectively Go Through Old Stacks of Writing
Posted by kathrynv at 10:37 am in author update, goals, writer's life, writing

My big writing project for 2010 is to go through all of the old writing that I’ve been meaning to go through for years. I have tons of projects that relate to this. I’ve got old files on my computer that need to be organized, some of which can be deleted and others that can be re-worked into new articles. I have an entire box of old scraps of writing that date back more than ten years. I have several poetry and fiction projects that were started and have been ignored. It’s my goal to go through these, save the stuff I’m actually going to use, mine some insights wherever I can and then toss the rest. The goal here is to clear out the old writing (either by using it or tossing it) in order to make room for new writing.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s not easy to accomplish this task (which is why I’ve been starting and stopping it and putting it off for so long). But I think I’ve found a system that works for me. Here it is:

Identify all of the writing to go through

The first step for me had to be to get organized enough to know what I wanted to look through. Then I needed to prioritize. The main things I want to look through are computer files, that box of writing and my unfinished projects. I prioritized them in that order.

Define clear goals for what to do with the writing

My biggest problem with going through my writing has always been that I don’t really know what to do with it as I’m going through it. Sure, there are some scraps that I clearly just need to toss but mostly there’s a bunch of stuff that may or may not be useful to me in some form. Defining exactly what I’m looking for as I go through my writing makes it a lot easier to actually sort through it. For me, the goals are:

  • Repurpose any work that can be used somewhere else. This goal needed to be even clearer so I had to set specific things that I was looking for such as writing to use in my personal blogs, writing to repurpose for clients, writing to turn into magazine articles for specific magazines … By defining this, I am able to do a much better job of organizing existing writing for new uses.
  • Look for any insights into myself. Much of my writing, especially on those scraps of paper, reminds me of things about myself that I had forgotten. That’s why it’s so hard to get rid of some of it. What I’m doing is setting aside anything that provides specific insight and then journalling about it now before I get rid of those original pieces of writing.
  • Save any great lines. Usually there are only one or two great lines of writing in a whole stack of papers. I’m learning to look for those and then set them aside while getting rid of the rest of the writing junk that is there.
Knowing that these are my goals makes it easier to organize my writing because as I’m looking at a document I can ask myself “can this be used somewhere else – and where”, “what does this tell me about myself” and “are there any really great lines I need to keep?”

Create a system of organization
After defining these goals I was able to start thinking about how I wanted to organize what I was sorting through. Because I’m sorting through several different things, I’m using a few different methods to get organized:
  • Computer and physical files. For the work that I want to use somewhere else, I’ve got files labeled “blogs, clients, magazines”. There is a file on my computer for each of these so that I can drop other files into each of them to get organized. I also have physical files for each of these which is where I’m sorting the paper stuff in the same manner if I plan to use it in a writing project.
  • Stack for journalling. If something seems like it gives me some real insight into myself then I place it in a stack for journalling about later.
  • Highlighting. The few great lines that I’m coming across are highlighted and then stacked together. I’ll be going through these highlighted portions later and copying them into a journal or computer file – a sort of inspiration packet for myself.
A note on the “miscellaneous” stack
At first, I also was tempted to have a “miscellaneous” stack for keeping “good” writing that didn’t seem to have any other place. I quickly realized this would just fill up and I’d be left with the same mess that I had before. I decided that there would be no miscellaneous stack. If a piece of writing didn’t fit into one of my categories, I’d ask myself if there was any purpose at all for it. If I couldn’t come up with one then I’d get rid of the writing. It’s ruthless and tough but it’s the only way I’m going to mine through this stuff, find the gems and move on.
Start plodding through in small chunks
Now that I’ve got this system ready, I’m able to start plodding through it. What I’ve discovered is that I need to do this in small chunks. I take a stack of the papers that I have and sort through them each evening. I only spend about half an hour on this project. I just go through that stack, put each paper in one of the aforementioned files or the trash, and then that’s it. A few times a week, I do the same thing with computer files. I’ve found that tackling small chunks on a regular basis is helping me get through this project much more efficiently than ever before.
So that’s my system and it seems to be working so far. How do you mine through your old writing?

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