The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting 12 Aug 2010

Aka a guide to writing?

This morning, Mitsuko watched a TV show with a woman who has a group that does research on how to organize your refrigerator. Most of the show was her (let's call her the master) helping someone (we'll call this woman the student) who was not part of the group to tackle straightening up their refrigerator. But as I was listening to the steps, I got to thinking about them as a kind of allegory -- or at least a metaphor for what we may need to do with our writing. Let's see what you think.

1. Separate. The first step was to have the student go through what was in the fridge, trashing stuff that was too old, setting aside things that didn't need to be in the fridge, and taking a good long look at what was left. That triage -- separating the "good stuff" from the other stuff that always accretes is so necessary for writers. Stop and take a good hard look, separating what you want to use, what you want to keep but not now, and the throwaway stuff.

2. Plan. The next step was to sit down with a large sheet of paper and some markers. The master had the student draw a picture of the shelves, then stop and think about how the student wanted to organize the refrigerator. What did she want to do with the refrigerator? They came up with "zones" that made sense to the student. And there was a deliberate "free zone" put in for later adjustment, instead of filling everything. Frankly, this is where I started to think that this is kind of what we need to do with our writing. Don't try to figure out every little dot and line, but do have an overall picture of what we're doing. Look at the way other people have organized (and sliced and diced) writing, but put your own labels on the parts. And divvy it up in ways that make sense to you. Oh, leave some room for flexibility, too.

3. Visible storage. This was a big thing for the master. She insists on see-through storage, so that you can easily see what's inside. Glass bottles, transparent plastic boxes, and so on. Even as she helped the student, though, she insisted that the student do the work. Along the way, they re-did some things. Instead of keeping part of a package from the store, move it into a plastic storage bag. And whenever possible, go ahead and do the preparation -- pour oil on the chicken in the bag, put soy sauce on things, and let them soak in the refrigerator. Again, interesting analogy to writing. When you have ideas, scraps, and snippets, put them away -- but make them visible. Explicit lists, and so forth. And go ahead and start the preparation. If you use a list of questions, fill in some of them before you put that idea away for later. If you're putting away something, consider pulling out some pieces as you put it away. And so on...

4. Clean up, and plan ahead. When they hit the vegetable drawer, they had to stop and clean it out before the master would let the student put vegetables in it again. And while they were at it, the master suggested putting a plastic bag on the bottom, sort of as a liner, and a layer of newspapers. She explained that you can take a sheet of newspaper off and throw it away, making cleaning easier. Then when you reach the plastic bag, pick it all up and throw that away, and it should be pretty clean.

This caught my attention, as I thought about the piles and piles of paper I have in my office. Sorry, but I'm really bad about projects that are over -- I often just pile them in a corner and move on. I got to wondering about how I would deal with them if I started out planning to clean up afterwards...

Separate, plan, storage, and cleaning up beforehand. So that your cool writing is as organized as a good refrigerator?

And I thought it was just another daytime TV show...