There are two types of writers. The crazy organized type that uses their systems to perfect their process, and the, well, not so organized, who will readily admit that their expertise is in writing, not the writing process. The myth around the two types is that only one of the two can benefit from tools that help you stay organized and efficient. Instead, the truth is that everyone can benefit from such tools!
Whether you’re already organized or trying to get more so, Bublup is a fantastic tool to help perfect your process. I’ve used Bublup to help me write two books and four zines, so I can personally vouch for it.
I’m sure you’re wondering how Bublup helped me and can help you, so let’s dive into it!
Everything Needs a Home
When I was working on my first poetry book, I had over 300 poems written across Google Docs, notes in my iPhone, notes on my Macbook Pro, my camera roll, and more. A big reason why I took as long as I did before writing my first book was that I could never see myself organizing the work into something coherent. That changed when I discovered Bublup. Bublup for me was the tool that allowed me to place all of my poetry into folders, then organize said folders according to my own preferences.
I started by organizing where I could find the poems. So I had folders for each place they could be found. Next, I re-organized by theme. So I had folders for each theme I found and that allowed me to understand how many different chapters I needed, the order of the chapters, and what I needed to cut out.
Whittling down from 300 poems to a more digestible number was key in making the book a reality.
Once I had my folders set up by theme and the poems chosen that I wanted to publish, I was able to create the book from those folders! I pulled from the different documents and notes and placed it all in one document, creating my book.
WIthout Bublup for this process, I don’t know what I would have done. Truthfully, there’s a large chance I never would have completed the poetry book at all, nor would I have written a second one. As a writer looking to complete his first project, knowing I had a tool to help me complete the first few steps and guide me the whole way was paramount.
Everyone Needs a Home, Too!
Years after writing my first book, I decided to try a new challenge. It was time to create my first zine. My zine, or mini online magazine, was a collective effort between myself and various authors, artists, photographers, and more across the globe. We featured participants from multiple states, countries, and continents.
Given that, I’m sure you can imagine the difficulties we faced staying organized and housing everyone’s work. Of course, the difficulties didn’t last long once I invited everyone to a Group Folder in Bublup so we could collaborate and have all our content in one place. We created subfolders, inside the main Group Folder, for different types of works (poetry, prose, photography, art, and visual art) and had everyone place their respective works into their respective folders. We worked in real-time together, by commenting and reacting to each other’s work, and always stayed up to date because everyone was always on the same page (aka inside the same folder).
In the main folder, the artist working on the cover for the zine provided different options for the cover, which we then voted on by providing reactions. The cover art with the most positive reactions was selected as the cover art for the zine.
Similarly to the book, once we had everything in their respective folders, we were able to simply transfer everything (this time into Canva) and create our first ever zine. Without Bublup, the number of emails, documents, notes, and more going back and forth between different participants would have been overwhelming to the point where people would have dropped out of participating.
Instead, we created one of the works I am most proud of, and the process went so flawlessly that we ended up creating three more!
You might be wondering where you can find any of the work I’ve mentioned throughout this blog. Well, when it came time to share my work, I realized that the best place to house big projects is Bublup! I put all of my different projects into folders, organized them as I wanted, and rolled them up into an instant webpage, or a Roll as Bublup lovingly calls it.
You can find my work in this Roll here! I keep it as the link in my Instagram bio and regularly share it with others as a way to send out the different zines I’ve worked on and my books at the same time. If I ever want to show off my creative projects, this is the most efficient way to do so. I can also track how many people have viewed the Roll to better understand how popular the work has been.
Overall, Bublup has been a savior for me throughout the writing process and I couldn’t recommend it enough. I have a community of people who agree and over six works that wouldn’t be possible without the app. Happy writing, folks!
