I always find it interesting what other writers do to keep track of their stories. I know some of us have paper filing systems (I do) and some of us keep track of our stories on spreadsheets.
I prefer the paper filing systems because when I finish writing and editing a story which I do direct on to the computer, and then I send it out, which I tend to also do by email, I quite like to sit and fill in a paper record. I know, I’m odd like that! For every story I ever write I keep a blank postcard. It has the title at the top of the card and the number of words, and then below this, I write down the markets where this story will go, for example, Woman’s Weekly, Take a Break etc. Then I list the date sent on the first market and when the story is either sold or returned I list the date again, with any comments.
Recently I ran out of white postcards, so I decided it would be fun to get some different coloured postcards and colour code my stories. So now I have:
Yellow – humorous stories
Blue – emotional stories
Green – twists
Pink – romance
I know, I am quite mad. but it’s quite good fun, watching the colours build up in my index card filing box and seeing how many of each type I write. 🙂
Does anyone else do this?
I keep track of my story submissiions on the computer. I colour code: yellow for pending, red for rejected and green for accepted. I also use purple for seasonal stories as a reminder that I have to think carefully about when to send these out.
Fantastic. I’m so glad I’m not the only one. I like your red and green (stop and go?) themes.
When I was writing short stories I had two systems on the go for tracking submissions – one is a spreadsheet with story, market, date sent, date rejected/accepted, payment details etc. The other is a bit like your postcards without the lovely colour – an A5 loose leaf binder with a page per story, and the market sent to. Dividers for ‘out there’, ‘published’, ‘in the drawer’. I’d move the page according to the story’s fate. Very satisfying to flick back through the ‘published’ section!
Great idea about having a published section. Very satisfying. thanks xxx