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OPEN! Warehouse of Self-Taught Writing.com Lessons, Instructions, & Stuff! |
Before starting, make sure you have the basics of your portfolio set up. Refer to "Portfolio ~ Setting it Up"  ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Why bother with folders? It's a mind thing.  With no folders, the mind sees item after item, of different sub-types and genres, jumbled in no particular order on the screen, which scrolls down forever. Your mind has to work much harder to figure out what is there. If you are looking for dark poetry and it is mixed in with all the other items, it will require more concentration to spot. Then, the mind has to remember where the items are located that were of interest. Along with requiring more work and time on the part of the reader, there is also the chance they will miss an item they would have enjoyed reading. If you visit a port with folders that fit on one screen or only require a short scroll down, your mind has ascertained immediately what is in that port. Time and work have been reduced, and it becomes a more pleasurable experience. Let's say you don't read poetry and all the folders deal with poetry, you would move on. On the other hand, let's say you love to read poetry, so you check out the poetry folder. Within that folder, you find several sub-folders, which all fit on the same screen and are categorized by genre or type. You can zoom in quickly to what attracts you. Your mind quickly knows what is in the port, and has several enticing and easy avenues to follow to find an item of interest. The mind will stay engaged if it is not too overwhelmed. Also, we humans can be very lazy. So, let's get your items better organized If you have only a Free Membership, you will not be able to do this. Please jump down to item # 8. CONTENTS: 1. Editing your items 2. Deciding what type folders you need and want. 3. Naming your folders. 4. Cover images for your folders. 5. Creating folders. 6. Moving items into folders. 7. Prioritizing 8. Alternative for Free memberships 1. Editing your items. Before creating folders, review your SUB-TYPE and GENRES to make sure they are accurate and informative. Think about which ones would give the reader the most detailed and appealing information. For example, Contest Entries might help you, but it gives a visitor little info. Better to use Fiction or Short Story as a sub-type and pick three content genres. Then in the description add that it is a contest entry, or include the contest info within the actual item. Editing first will make it easier to organize your items in folders. 2. Deciding what type folders you need and want. Let's say you have a lot of poetry. You can make one folder and put all of your poetry in that. You could categorize them further into folders by topic or form. The same can be done with short stories. You could also have one overall short story folder and then have sub-folders inside your short story for comedy, horror, dialogues. Take a look at the items that are similar and decide how you might want to group them. 3. Naming your folders Once you have an idea of what folders you want to create, you will need to figure how to label them. Standards labels used are type and genre. Under types you could use poetry, short stories, non-fiction, novel stuff, etc. Genres would be things like horror, spiritual, fantasy, comedy. You can also mix and match. Let's say you write mostly Spiritual. Within the Spiritual folder you might have a folder for poetry and one for essays/articles. Other folder categories to consider could be groups/forums, contests, activities, images, photos, references, junk, under construction. Each folder must have a required description just like items do, so you can be creative with your labels if you choose, and use the description space to specify what it contains such as "Collection of my poetry." The actual labels/titles could be the names of cities, animal/pets, tree/plants. You are only limited by your imagination. Much of this will be determined by the number and variety of items you currently have in your portfolio. Once you learn how to do this, you can always go back and reorganize as you accumulate more pieces of writing and WDC items. 4. Cover images for your folders. This will obviously be determined by the title of the folder. Cover images for folders are inserted using the same procedure as cover images for items and your portfolio BioBlock. It is suggested that you collect and save on your computer some images that you might want to use. For instructions, refer to "Portfolio ~ Setting it Up" . 5. Creating folders Before actually creating your folders, you may want to take a peek at a few portfolios. Here are few examples. Notice the variety! Shaye  - Marci Missing Everyone  - Whata SpoonStealer  - Warped Sanity - SB Musing  - River  - Choconut  - Pat ~ Rejoice always! - Cinn The actual creation of the folders follows the same procedure as creating a static item. If you have decided what types of folders you will be making, their titles and cover mages, then you are ready to roll! Here is an item that will take you through the process. "Invalid Item" 6. Moving items into folders There are two ways to do this.  The long way requires that you edit each item you want moved.- Put the item you want moved into Edit mode. - Scroll down to the second dropbox under the text box, and click on it to bring into view your list of folders - Click on the folder that you want the item moved into - Save and View. - Refresh the page to make sure it is in the correct folder. There is a portfolio organizer which allows you to put items into different folders much quicker and easier.- Right above your first folder, you should see the word PORTFOLIO and a little icon next to it. - Click on the icon. - A little bar will drop down. Click on DRAG/DROP ORGANIZER. - Then a new window will pop up with a list of all your stuff. - Start by clicking on a folder to open it. - Then drag one at a time each of the items that you want in that folder. - Make sure you pull each item over enough to the right, so it looks like an indented outline. Sometimes the horizontal boxes get persnickety.  Click on MOVE TO FOLDER - Check the item you want moved - Indicate in the text box the new location folder. 7. Prioritizing Now that you have everything in folders, let's prioritize them. Which folder or item, would you like to be first? If you have a blog, forum or contest that you want to draw attention to, then put it near the top. The same thing can be done within each folder. If you have items that need reviews or that you are proud of, you can move them to the top of the folder. The order of items and folders can be changed as needed and desired. How? - Go back to the Portfolio Organizer by clicking on the gear icon. - Click on REORDER - Change the numbers to the sequence you want. You can also use the DRAG/DROP option ~~~~~ Do you use the HIGHLIGHT boxes? I would recommend using them to showcase writing pieces for which you want reviews, versus contests or blogs. However, you decide what works best for you. It can always be changed. On the Biography tab there are the RECOMMENDED boxes. Along with showcasing your own items, contests, forums, or blogs, you can also showcase stuff from other members there. 8. For Free Memberships Since you can not create folders, it is suggested that you make an item with a Table of Contents. The items should be listed under appropriate categories, which involves the same strategies discussed in items #1, #2 & #3. When you list your items under the categories, use this format {LD-item:xxxxxxx} |
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