I’ve been working on web stuff more often than not, so I’m going slowly through this, and I’m still on the first pass. Took the big pile o’ paper to the coffee shop writing group this morning, and I’m now up to page 250. I’m crossing out lots of stuff — scenelets that never went anywhere, notes to myself that no longer apply. Writing new notes: “pp. 80-100 are almost a total loss.” “Marianne came to visit 20 pages ago. Why is she now back at home and talking on the phone?” “Emily turns up here knowing everyone. Where did her first scene go?” [40 pages later:] “Here’s Emily’s first scene.”
Yeah, my nonlinear writing process is making this a little more difficult than it might otherwise be. Most of the scenes will be easy to move around. Some I’ll have to split up, since they need to be where they are, but the characters are commenting on other things that haven’t happened yet. The bad thing is that I thought I’d already taken care of all the out-of-order stuff. Argh.
On the bright side, my own manuscript made me laugh out loud in the coffee shop, so I guess that’s good.
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