The art of organising and note taking....if only!

I think one of my writing goals for 2017 should read be more organised. I work in an organised chaos and am bad at making notes when I write. I'll remember that, I think. Oh yes! (Case in point - couldn't remember the name of a very minor character who appears once and is mentioned once when he had a name! Made no notes 😐. Ended up leaving a ? It will come out in the editing, but annoying.)

So I am going to try and get my act together a bit this year. Over breakfast I went through Writing Magazine to see who was looking for what and cut out the ones I thought I might enter. Instead of leaving the little snippets stuffed in a plastic pocket (where upon I take a few out and then lose them!) I have stuck them on a sheet of A4 paper and highlighted the deadlines and anything else I think is important (word count, for instance). One of the competitions had a deadline of tomorrow so I had to make a quick decision and I did. I fired off a piece of flash fiction I had which fitted the word count and had been waiting in my 'Flash' folder on my laptop.

Over the last few days I succeeded in my first goal for 2017 and finished the humorous novel which was put aside in October so close to its ending. The bones of the last few chapters are there. I know I will need to do some serious editing but at least it is done and I can move on. (We won't mention the chapter I thought I'd lost - see note about notes!). I have no idea when I shall start editing it. I now have rather a lot of editing hanging around my neck.

Going back to submissions I try to have a mix of competitions and magazines. Competitions require a monetary outlay which mount up if you do too many in month. However, looking at the websites of some magazines their submission guidelines can be quite daunting. Sometimes I don't even know what they asking for because their explanation is so weird. It puts me off and I just decide not to submit there. Surely a genre requirement, word count and a look at an issue of their magazine would suffice? Why the obscure and mysterious wording? Am I alone in this?

So, it's back to the submissions and editing. If you are doing the same, good luck.