road trips and organization questions

[ella_bee]

I'm still riding the high of actually completing my very first big bang. It was quite the accomplishment for me, and I'm pretty proud. Coming from my recent musings on my ability to stay on task, it was the first big thing post my life-style changes that I really accomplished, so yes, I'm kind of putting it up on a pedestal and using it as a

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[hannasus]

I use Scrivener for my novel (and LOVE it) but for fics I just use Open Office. I'm not super organized either. I use Dropbox for backup and have a separate folder for each fandom (or original fiction project) with everything I've ever written (or started) for that fandom crammed in there.

Shorter fics are just a single document, with notes (if there are any) stuck at the end. For longer fics that actually get outlined, I usually put the outline and any associated research and notes in a separate doc. For REALLY complicated fics, the notes & research get a third doc all their own.

The big problem is that I never know what a story is going to be named when I first start it (and sometimes I don't even really know what it's going to be about) so the document name is usually something really random. And I never go back and fix the doc name once I've come up with a title, which means looking back on old stuff I often have no idea what any of it is. I am the worst at naming files--totally inconsistent and disorganized.

See what a mess my Leverage fic folder is:



I do something kind of like your castoffs thing sometimes. But it's usually only on longer fics when I decide to eliminate whole scenes. Then I save them in an "unused passages" file in case I change my mind (or want to reuse them for something else, which I sometimes do). I almost never "save as" though, because I just know I'd quickly end up swamped under a mountain of duplicate material with random names that I'd never be able to sort out.

[ella_bee]

After looking at your file, I'm pretty please with my organizational structure. :D

Wait, you write Castle? *looks at your AO3 account* Duuuuuude, I'm totally going to go read that ASAP.

See, I use Scrivinor for my fics, just because then I can switch between them quickly if I need to. I also really like the tree file system so that I can add sub-stories as things are added / edited.

See?



This is fascinating.

[alinaandalion]

Ooh, I like that. What is Scrivenor? Is it something only Macs have?

(Because it looks like something that would make my organized brain way, way too happy.)

[ella_bee]

It used to be Mac only, but they have a version for Windows now too! I LOVE this program. The research part and "project" reminds me a little of Evernote too. I just love it.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/

I bought it a little over a year ago, and it's the BEST program I've purchased. And I only use a FRACTION of its features.