Welcome to The Systematic Scribe
Organize your writing life
Hi! I’m Sarah. I’m a writer, editor and journalist — and my superpower is organization.
Not the home kind. My books aren’t organized by color or author. I’ve never looked at my belongings and wondered what “sparks joy.” And my closets are rather tragic.
I know that there are writers who can just sit down to an empty page and make magic. I am not one of them; I thrive on structure. And even those writers one might call disorganized need to keep track of assignments, deadlines, files and invoices. Then there’s research, sources, story structure and more.
This can get overwhelming. No wonder we get writer’s block.
When it comes to my writing life, I’ve found that organization is a key tool for letting me be creative. I’d rather spend time thinking about beautiful wording rather than searching for that piece of research I know I saw somewhere. And it does make tax time a lot easier when you’ve tracked your work and deductions all year.
But “getting organized” can be overwhelming, too. There are so many tools and tricks; it’s hard to know which will work for what purpose. Taking the time to investigate options and implement solutions can seem like a waste of time when you’re on deadline. Even if you know deep down that organization will save you time or make you more money in the end.
Then we get fooled by the tools that claim they’re the only one anyone will ever need — but that’s never true. Our needs change over time (even Marie Kondo had to adapt once she had her third kid). Different aspects of our writing life may need different approaches. Even one project to the next may require different tools. And we’re just not all the same. Neurodivergent individuals, in particular, have their own needs.
So, where do you start? That’s where I’m hoping this newsletter can help.
What makes me qualified to talk about this?
Let’s start with a story. In one of my previous editor jobs, we had a series of temps fill in for a production role. Some were good. Some were not. When one of them left, we found a cache of files in a cabinet that contained stories that had come in that had never been sent to editing — they had just been filed away. For months.
Management was, understandably, not happy.
I took it upon myself to not just move those stories into the editing queue but also create a system that would prevent such a scenario from arising in the future. All it took was a spreadsheet and a will to keep it updated.
And I discovered something that I was really good at.
Now, I have tools for knowing what to do and when, of course. That’s the simple stuff. But I’ve also created whole workflows and organizational systems for publications. (I’ll have to tell you at some point about the appalling whiteboard incident.) Organization helped me start up a print magazine and rebrand a website, all in the same year with minimal staff. Specific story structures keep me on track and within word counts. Plus, I’ve been part of my organization’s product thinking team for years in addition to managing my own freelance business. (Based on that, I recently created a free Airtable template for freelance writers, along with detailed instructions on how to use it. Even staff writers may find it helpful, so take a look.)
In short, I have years of organizing experience. So why not share it with others?
What can you expect from this newsletter?
I’m still developing a template for this newsletter (I’ll talk about templates in the future, for sure), but I’m hoping to share a lot of that experience using various tools and approaches. I plan to include links to news stories and books that might be helpful. I also want a space for myself to learn and experiment with new structures, apps, tools and tricks. (There are so many; when I started organizing this newsletter project, I found dozens of things to investigate.)
But I also recognize that there are other experts out there — people who have their own approaches and experiences — and I hope to interview them in future newsletters. And I’d love to hear from my readers about what interests you and what you’d like me to investigate, as well as any questions you might have.
My hope is that you find solutions for your own writing life amongst my musings.
So I’ll see you in the next newsletter, where I’ll discuss some of the tools I used to start up The Systematic Scribe.
— Sarah
The Systematic Scribe is free. I have no current plans to have paid subscriptions — but if you like what you read and would like to support this work, you can Buy Me a Coffee.