Organized Thoughts? Who Has Those?

Yesterday, the topic of discussion on Twitter's #writechat was 'Inspiration VS. Organization: Tips & tools for each and how they work together'. So, that got me to thinking...I couldn't offer tips on either topic.

For the most part, I am an organized person. Or so I’ve been told. I hate clutter so I try to keep my home as meticulous as humanly possible. My bookshelves house books of varying size but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them—I’m an expert book ‘clusterer’. I even colour-code so that the spines don't clash.
My bedroom closet keeps my folded clothes in organized piles and my clothes hangers? Well, they’re all the same. They must always be the same. NO WIRE HANGERS!
My desk at work has to be just so—everything has its place. Stapler beside printer, pen holder beside the phone, post-its, well post-its are everywhere because I have an addiction to them.
I re-organize my purse/bag just about every night before I go to bed so that I’m all set for another day at the office. You boys would be shocked to learn just how much garbage a woman can accumulate in her purse in just one day.
If I were to live in a home that was disorganized and cluttered, I wouldn’t get anything done because I would feel so stressed out by my surroundings. Have you ever seen that show Hoarders on A&E? I can’t watch it! It’s like a horror movie.

Here I am bragging while there’s one area of my life that is in complete disarray; my writing.
I have boxes of papers, cocktail napkins (it’s amazing what a glass of wine can do which is why a lot of famous authors were hopeless alcoholics), matchbooks, LOT’S of post-its, receipts etc. with my scribbling on them. Most of the good stuff has been placed neatly into my trusty laptop but every once in a while, I’ll stumble upon some prose or dialogue from my novel written in eyeliner or lipstick on the back of a receipt.
Even when I have the proper tools around me to get some writing done, I still find it hard to jot down random thoughts and ideas into the computer—I prefer my post-its or notepads.
I have notebook after notebook with pages of post-it notes strategically placed even though I had plenty of lined paper to write on.
If anyone saw the way I keep my writing, they would be appalled considering how anal I am about everything else in my life. They would also question the language I write in because even I can’t read my handwriting anymore.

A fellow writer once told me that the reason why my writing is not organized is because my thoughts are ‘unorganized’. Meaning, I don’t write in sequence. I wrote the epilogue to my novel before I wrote the first chapter. I wrote the last paragraph before I wrote the third chapter. And so on. I write the story as it comes to me and it comes to me in spurts, especially dialogue.

Even though this is the one area of my life that is out of control, I don’t feel stressed about it at all, strangely enough. I think that’s because writing brings me so much joy and allows me to just take and take. My pen & paper never asks for anything in return. It’s a give-give relationship!
The first and only one that I will ever have in this life.

As for inspiration, you'll have to go back a couple of posts to see how I'm doing with that these days.