THE NOTESAPP SYSTEM FOR WRITERS THAT WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL! ™

our new banner, replete with all the pets, by the incredible Jenny Ziomek!

Welcome to a special Good Thing Going Reader!

Being a writer is only about 17% writing- the rest is thinking, and the real challenge is finding a way to organize those thoughts. Over breakfast you have a character breakthrough but you’re rushing to a pap smear. In the shower you realize that one crazy experience you had in high school is actually a mystery novel, AND YOU HAVE TO WRITE IT NOW. There are the fragments that matter to the projects you’re working on, and then there are the new projects that enter your mind unbidden, sent to distract you while you’re trying to power through. NotesApp came along to give us a place to stick it all, but so often it ends up like a fridge full of farm stand produce you swore you’d have time to cook- past its sell by date, kind of stinky, embarrassing to show even your loved ones.

But no more! I have been working for years on a simple system to turn it from NO(tesApp) to YASSSQUEENApp. It will require a little bit of groundwork, a commitment to a weekly cleanout/organization sesh (actually quite soothing) and soon you’ll be proudly flashing your notes at strangers in bars.

Okay, so we’re going to need to use images. And I’m going to have to get intimate and screen share, so plz be gentle.

This is the main page, where folders indicate larger buckets…

be sweet

Straightforward so far. There’s the personal stuff (Animals! Yeah, I have a lotta animal stuff to handle- you don’t want to KNOW about my pig training log.) Health. Domestic. You’re you, and you know what’s important to YOU. 

But for me, the most essential bucket is TO DO- it’s where I’m handling those daily lists, the ones that have you bolting out of bed at night like a home invader is afoot. I keep a few lists: TODAY (the stuff that must happen urgently) LONG TERM (wouldn’t it be great to get that off my back) TO SEND (mail, gifts, books etc) and lists relating to currently unfolding shit like if I were moving or packing for a trip. But the most important list here is the WRITING TO DO LIST.

I can’t tell you all my secrets, so the projects on this list have been given code names. Wow, it’s so fun to invent fake projects. Is this why action movies always have code names? Because writers are so extra?

Still, you’ll get the gist- it’s a firmly categorized running log of everything you’re currently putting to paper or planning to enact.

*sample*

TV

-A Walk On The Plains (revise as per notes from Vanessa)

-A Secular Bitch (do research with Felicity)

-Naive and Alive (pilot in process)

*percolating TV ideas*

-little girl magic frog buddy comedy (pitch to Jerry)

-Was Julius Ceasar a fuckboy? (to consider)

*features*

-Jeremy’s Spoken (waiting on outline feedback)

-Nautical Naughties (do notes as per convo with sailing expert)

THEATER

-The Ice Man Goeth (pitch to Jacob Elordi)

PROSE

-Chastity Belt (share draft with YA romance editor)

-A Doctor In Every Port (fact checking)

*percolating*

Ingrid: the remarkable hairless dog who went from California Gurl to English Arisotocrat

I also have a WRITING SCHEDULE note in this folder, which looks something like this:

LD Writing Schedule

Week of 6/22

• Nebula & Friends (revisions)

• Janice Hosenstein: The Unsung Heroine of Friends (revisions)

Week of 7/15

• Get a Job Get a Haircut Get Away From Me (pilot outline)

Okay, so with these projects in play, how do we organize them? Let’s check into our buckets. If I open the FILM & TV folder, it contains… you guessed it… more folders, one for each project I’m actively working on (and yet another for miscellaneous ideas.)

Going even deeper in, this is what’s inside, say, the GOOD SEX folder (the movie I’m about to start shooting):

my caption

The TOO MUCH folder is similar, and if I’m editing a project I’ll go in even deeper, creating a folder for that, with more folders unfoldering within it:

I know, she’s a lot…

Same for PROSE:

Having these lists, calendars and folders doesn’t mean I’m crushing it all the time. But it does offer me an organized mirror of my own brain, where everything can be placed in its proper slot- the desk of my mind, uncluttered. So if there’s a day the writing isn’t coming, I may just dash off a note with a few ideas for a new scene, a memory that could have a place in my book, or simply a list of actors that inspire me. It may be a list of books and articles that relate to an essay I’m working on. Or I may just go to the NotesApp and look, to be reminded that once upon a time I did have an idea and I will again very soon.

There are as many systems as there are writers- but during busy periods, health flare ups where my brain feels like a very weak bolognese sauce, or on a Sunday when the week ahead seems intimidatingly vast- this is the system that has made it all seem possible. One time my a glitch caused my NotesApp to come up blank for an afternoon and I wandered in agitated circles like Guy Pierce in Memento, trying to piece it all together before it appeared again as if my magic.

Because NotesApp has never failed me.

It’s so lovely that Substack is full of readers and writers. So I’m very curious to know- how do you keep it all straight? How do you persevere when it gets hazy or lonely? What’s your secret?

I promise I’ll keep it (safe in one of my folders…)

Love,

Lena