RULE TEN: STAY ORGANIZED—the Vitality that Develops into Excellence.

RULE TEN

STAY ORGANIZED—the Vitality that Develops into Excellence. 

You might be astounded on how I address you now—Your Excellency. You earned it with the perseverance it has taken you to follow my leading from the outset, through to this day. You deserve, and have earned my respect: for I revere myself, and have thus far decanted my adept, literary values into your being; so, I have every reason to respect you. Now, your loyalty has got you writing royalty. More is to come whence this rule-series was dished…. And the time—how long nonetheless, spent in the educational garner will always be worth your while. Already, you have taken nine of the ten write right rules, and more; your highness, absorb the tenth.

Organization, which is the creation of order, or operating according to some principles or ideas as directed by a plan, facilitates the art of writing. Just as thought precedes idea, which is succeeded by action that is coordinated by planning to be finally transformed into reality, it is expected that you should place tasks in the right order of successive processes of any procedure, so as to reduce stress of production and increase the speed of delivery therein. Made plan, and its utility is as important as an anticipated success in itself. Plan must come first before the process application, which had been designed to land the expected success: this order is apposite for a workable organization that will, in the end, birth an acclaimed excellence.

“Good writing is using the language in a way that will achieve the greatest strength and the least clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing. It is impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English.”¹ Factually, a writing surrounding that is in disorder, likely clutters up a writer’s mind. Some thoughts on this differ, one of which asks: “‘If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?’ He then, implied that ‘the leader—the writer in this case, is one who, out of the clutter, brings simplicity … out of discord, harmony … and out of difficulty, opportunity,’ and further urged the otherwise thinkers to ‘find simplicity, out of clutter; find harmony, from discord; as in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.’”² After all said and done, it is a verity that most writers work atop a desk filled with mounds of papers, which can most times cause confusion … and scuttle the success of a writing project; you are thus, exhorted to write on a clear desk. If perhaps in an assumed pile of paper pieces, there is a prospective book, it certainly will take a lot of time to collate—sort out, and collect together the would-be book. You will agree with me that this kind of frustration will not happen with an earlier organization, before work is activated.

As you prepare to write either an article or a book, ensure organizing your ideas to get you composed so as to save time, in the end: create relevant folders in your computer and create files for your ideas, and put them in appropriate ones—folders; as for the hard copy jottings, file them distinctively in a cabinet—according to suiting projects. While working with the computer, intermittently back up your unfinished works to update them as often as possible; copy them into external drives, as technology cannot be trusted—they fail without warning: I had once lost a completely edited book a few years back when the CorelDraw program, with which I formatted my design, broke down. It felt like I lost a child: of course, that was the demise of a brainchild! Although, I got conceived, went through the stress of parturition and pain of labour again; before delivering that brainchild—an inspirational book. That lesson was hard; so now, I do what I just advised you—asides from saving your documents in external memory devices such as, hard disk drives (HDD), compact disks (CD) … or flash-drives, you can email your writings to yourself, or even send them to a cloud storage where without encumbrance, they can be recalled for use, and updated at will as well, as long as you remember your password.

Your mind should be freed of all hotchpotches at all writing times to incite thinking clarity. Do the needful—engage in other activities, but they should not interfere with, or pose distractions to your writing. Do well to secure quiet surroundings and peace of mind where stress infested challenges are tossed away, and clear thinking precedes plan that action succeeds: for this is the environ naturally organized to accommodate and promote creativity.

I am hopeful that your time spent in knowing, will be worthy of practice in all that have been learnt—the rule-series and beyond. May my awesome thoughts of you have verity in your use of this rule: STAY ORGANIZED—the Vitality that Develops into Excellence. I foresee your pennings defying odds to be appreciated by almost, if not all readers. The know-how proffered in this rule is meant to enhance thought process—making it encumbrance free, doubtlessly giving rise to the creations of literary compositions, relieved of clutters, whilst ensuring the timesaving of working periods. Production will, in the end, be quick and efficient, whilst the products—books, articles, or other forms of literary compositions will turn out qualitative.

In all of our previous nine rules for enhancing writing, I have always tried to take you beyond the limits of your thought capacity, by the advices given to positively break the given rules—not any law. Remember? A writer who will go far in this field of endeavour will decisively ignore delimits that could likely obstruct the attainment of excellence herein. For rule ten of our write right rule-series, this is our rule breaker: Thought positive, I will like you to induce OCD—Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in your mind, as a writer. The upside of this psychologically inferred ailment is that it gets one careful enough to see that a thing worth doing is done appositely: there should be at least a striving toward perfection to get better—the intention of the malady aforementioned hereinbefore. Prune its downsides, and you are okay. If you will be obsessed with anything, let it be the act of ‘order,’ for that was the state of God’s mentation during Creation—“in the beginning when He gave form with his words to organise a world, which was formless and void”³: God gave the world form—order, “and saw that it was good.”⁴ “Made like God,”⁵ you have ‘words’ and the power to create; do well to give your literary creations organised forms too, and appraise to aver their goodness. Take the time to think, plan, and act; this order will land you a writing success: extend or shorten the allotted time for those writing processes aforementioned when the needs to do whichever, arise; then, your success will sooner than anticipated, be accounted.

Coming your way as soon as possible is another informative, spellbinding article, specially put together for you: look out for it.

All the newsletters so far delivered to you were designed to see that you grow to become a pro-writer. Promised, was these ten rules that have been proffered within the last twenty days; meanwhile, for your sake profound researches are going on now, in order that the articles you will subsequently get, will best your already better state of writing: the next newsletter and its accompanying article as others afore-sent will, of certainty, meet your expectation. Be expectant; for the expectation of the faithful will not be cut off.

Thank you, and take charge, my professional colleague.

Malik Obynna.

References:

1. William Zinsser.
2. Albert Einstein.
3. Gen. 1:1–2. Paraphrased. (Bible)
4. Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. (Bible)
5. Gen. 1:26–27. (Bible)

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