So, I have a writing and mental health conundrum. I've had an idea for a story since 2013 that I started for NaNoWriMo. At the time, I realized it was a bit too ambitious for me, so I filed the notes for later. Recently I've been poking at it again, and it

There are characters I don’t need anymore or can combine, details that fit the old idea, details that aren’t needed anymore… But I have 15 pages of notes and honestly the idea of going through all of it triggers my anxiety. I *want* to write this story. I adore the characters and the story itself, but the thought of organizing it feels so daunting! Do you possibly have any tips that might help? Thanks! 2/2

First, can I just say that this sounds like a dream to me? LOL. I genuinely love the process of sorting and organizing notes for a writing project. It may actually be my favorite part of writing.

However, I totally understand how something like this could seem super daunting. And as with anything overwhelming, the key is probably to take it in bite-sized pieces.

What I can do is tell you how I personally would handle this situation, and you can see if it might work for you. (For this example, I’m going to assume that all of your old notes are together in one Word document. But with a little modification this can still work if they’re in multiple documents or on paper or whatever.)

Open the document with your old notes, and create a fresh, brand-new document as well.
Read the first sentence of your old notes. I mean that literally - just the first sentence. (Or line, if the notes aren’t in complete sentences.)
Think about what kind of overarching category or theme the information in that sentence belongs to. Is it characterization? Setting description? A plot idea? A worldbuilding detail? This will be highly personal to the individual project.
In your new document, create a nice big bolded, underlined header for the name of that category/theme.
Consider the note again. Specifically, think about how the information fits into your new conceptualization of the story. Does it still work exactly as-is? Does it need to be tweaked? Or do you need to throw it out completely and replace it with something new?
Whatever you decide, write the new interpretation of that information under the correct heading in the new document. You can elaborate on the thought if you want, especially if it triggers related ideas that you don’t want to risk forgetting.
Go ahead and give the old note a big old strikethrough. That’ll give you a concrete sense of accomplishment, and also make it a snap to remember which of the old notes you’ve already dealt with when you come back to the document later.
Move on to the next line, rinse, and repeat. Just work through one line at a time. Don’t psych yourself out by looking ahead or worrying about everything that’s left. If the implications of a certain note are too overwhelming to think about right now, skip it and move to the next one.

What you’ll see taking shape after you’ve gone through a few lines of your old notes is a new organization of the information in which it’s sorted by theme. That means it won’t matter if your old notes jump wildly in focus from one line to the next - for each piece of information, you can find the right category it belongs to in the new document, and thus keep all of the newly interpreted bits of information grouped together in a logical way.

As you go on, this process will become progressively more intuitive as the new form of the story begins coalescing in your mind. You may also find that you can sub-divide the categories further, like having separate sub-headings for different characters under the characterization heading.

Once you’ve finished going through all those old notes, the new document should be really helpful in refining your ideas and seeing how the different categories fit together to form the greater story. And as I mentioned, this process can be easily modified for different tools and work styles.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!