Keeping It All Organized

So, I'm going to take a brief interlude and talk about worldbuilding, and more specifically, how I keep everything organized as I'm developing the world about which I'm writing. Some people advocate creating an entire world before one begins to work on writing to ensure that there is a set of internally consistent rules that govern it. For the most part, I agree with this, that you need to have some basics covered, but beyond those very basics, I feel that it hampers the story, characters, and world itself by constraining it to certain rules.

As I work I obviously have a general idea in mind, but I more or less come up with specifics as I come to them, even introduction of supporting characters who may or may not end up becoming important later on. One such character, the woman Sentinus meets in the loo, I would actually definitely like to reintroduce later on, but created her on a whim.

At any rate, when I do come up with these characters, cultures, locations, deities, and everything else, I add entries about them to their appropriate file that I've made in what I've labelled as my 'encyclopedia.' Realistically, I've introduced over sixty characters already, and most all of their names are Greek, Latin, or Celtic. There's even a man with an ancient Persian name. It can get kind of hard to keep up with them, so I put a little entry in, how they are described, and how they relate to others, as necessary.

I also have lots of notes, in general and of specific characters, as each of the folders (barring the map one) is of a specific character and things that I've planned to have happen to them. This doesn't even include my plot MSWord file, which I suppose I'll talk about at a later time. I also keep track of things which I'd like to write about, usually specific emotional responses or experiences, as well as potential quotes or my bastardizations of them.

And in reality, I have no idea is this makes me meticulously organized about my writing or not at all. I have no idea what manner of note-taking that other writers do, or how they organize it, but this is how I've managed it, just in case you all were wondering, which I'm quite sure that you were. Worry not though, loyal readers, my next entry will resume actual creative writing.