an-act-of-will

[an-act-of-will]

Episode Six- A New Goal

Thanks for tuning in to your regularly-scheduled writing journey podcast, An Act of Will. I’m your host, Sydney. Let’s get started.

So I finished my re-read through my finalized ‘chapters’ and oooh boy. It took more re-ordering than I thought it would. Instead of a timeline, it was a salad at times. I had characters talking about things they shouldn’t know yet, details repeated, someone trusting a character and then not and snapping back and forth. It was a doozy, so I took notes. I didn’t want to edit yet since I still want to draft the new scenes I need, but I noted what needed to be moved where, or at least after which plot point. I think after all the scenes I have planned are drafted, I need to make a plot timeline. By that I mean line up the index cards and make sure the plot is logical so there isn’t confusion like there is now. I know what’s happening because I know the whole story, but anyone else who reads this draft would be scratching their heads.

And that’s fine. This is what editing is for. Is it fairly annoying when I thought I had it basically down continuity-wise? Yes, but it’s nothing I can’t fix with some copying and pasting. I can weave everything in later, I just want to get some scenes drafted first. I made a goal- finish 10 spots for scenes, or at least get ideas for most of them, and then I can do the tinkering I need to do in the so-called ‘finished’ chapters.

Let me catch you up on the scenes to be written. In total, I have 32 slots for scenes. Most of those are multiples, meaning there are at least two missing scenes in that spot. All together, I have 55 to 73 plus scenes. That’s a big spread, I know, but I’m shooting for 60 as an approximate middle ground. Most of that spread is due to little numbers- meaning I’m not sure if there should be one or two scenes in a slot- but some slots do require four or more scenes. It’s hard to describe what I view as a ‘scene’, but I’ll do my best to explain. You can see it as when something significant happens, that’s a scene. It’s hard to define because each scene is a different length but has a clear end. If you write or read, you’d probably be able to break up a book into scenes if you pay attention.

But in better news, I have 12 scene slots ‘filled’, AKA completed. There’s one slot that needs a short bridging scene I’ll have to think of, but that one is mostly filled. In not-better news, I have no earthly idea what has to go in any of the other slots content-wise. I know some have to be clues, since it’s a mystery/thriller, and that some need to be romantic because there’s an underlying romance, but that’s all I know.

Despite all that, I think I’m making decent progress. It’s slower than I’d like, but I’ll cut myself slack there. Creation is a process. I’m making something out of nothing here, folks, and I’m damn proud of myself for that.

I also made a target word count in the document. I’ve said in the past that word count isn’t the be-all, end-all, but it helps as a ballpark figure to reach. Plus, it’ll be really satisfying to see that bar fill up. When it’s filled, I’ll move the goalposts because I’ll be in a better place to see how long the story needs to be at this stage. I’ve set 150,000 as my goal, starting from 79,106 words. I only need a little under 71,000 to write. But, like I said, that’s just the start. I’ll see what number I’ll have to shoot for next. But hey, sometimes you need the dopamine hit of seeing a progress bar fill up.

I also implemented my star sticker reward system again and used a sticker for every half an hour. Sometimes you gotta treat yourself like a kid. And star stickers are awesome.

I was kind of seeing at what point my writing brain started to get tired, and I think after a few days I have figured it out. It’s at about the hour mark. Granted, there are good days when I can go beyond that and bad days when I can’t do half that, but it’s a decent average. Of course, it isn’t all at once. I break it up into just about twenty minute periods, but sometimes I’m attending a stream so I break it up according to that.

Streams tend to be where I get the majority of my writing done. Something about being around other writers and being able to talk in between sprints, and the fact that my favorite streamer- Kate Cavanaugh, who’s katecavanaughwrites on twitch- uses dice and/or tarot cards to determine sprint length so it’s unpredictable in a fun way, makes it more conducive to me and my brain.

All in all, I finished 2 scene slots this month, which totaled two thousand, nine hundred sixty-three words. Since I started on the 17th and I’m recording on the 22nd, that’s pretty good! I also had Day Job and some holiday stuff to do, so it was in between a lot of things. I’ll keep working and updating you as I go.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for coming with me on my journey through storytelling. I have a Tumblr at an act of will with hyphens between the words if you’d like to keep up with me there. I will see you in a month. Until then, I wish you well and happy writing.

[an-act-of-will]

Sorry for not being active here, life has been a little slow writing-wise because of Day Job. Hopefully I’ll get a little better at balancing going forward.

But I also wanted to update you outside of the podcast in case you don’t listen or read the transcripts. The past three days I’ve managed to get back into my project, The Village, and get nearly 4,000 words done in a little under two hours collectively. Writing streams are awesome. Technically that’s over two days of active work since on the 18th I didn’t get anything done. But I got back into the project AND finished a scene spot that needed a bridge scene, plus started another scene spot! I think I’ll figure out what spot should be next so I don’t pause momentum when I’m done with my current one, but today was a good day. I’ll stop after I mark what spot is next so I don’t stretch myself too far.

[an-act-of-will]

Episode 5-Still here, and still writing

Thanks for tuning in to your regularly-scheduled writing journey podcast, An Act of Will. I’m your host, Sydney. Let’s get started.

First off, I’d like to thank you for being patient with me while I get this whole ‘podcast’ thing down. It’s been a little slow writing-wise lately because I’ve been working a lot at my day job, and when I’m off I just need to decompress because it’s just a lot. But this is what I’ve been up to.

In the Village, I finished off two scenes after I re-read them and found out that they were actually done, and not just kind-of done but need tweaking like I thought. So that was really encouraging. That’s one of the reasons I like the way I’ve set up my document right now- I can write little scenes and get the dopamine boost of finishing little tasks on the way to a huge task.

I also started reading through what I’d written again, taking notes along the way. I’m still in the process of that. I needed to do that because while I did leave short notes as to what preceded missing scenes, I only had vague descriptions of some. I legit have like ‘add romance scenes’ or ‘add more clues’ since it’s a mystery, but no ideas of what to add. So I thought reading through and taking more detailed notes would help. I only allowed myself to summarize or add brief notes in the margins, not edit directly. This way, I don’t get bogged down in details when the whole story needs work. That’s a practice that’s just good to have, separating drafting and editing. They require completely different skill sets, so trying to do both will bring nothing but frustration.

Before starting my work on The Village, I’ve been keeping up with my Ray Bradbury Challenge. Sort of. I’ve read three stories, essays, and poems and written one short story so far. Not exactly a lot, but it’s more than what I had and that’s always something to pat yourself on the back for. I haven’t exactly been sticking to the ‘read one of each every single day’ or ‘write a story every single week’ but it’s what I can do when I can do it. There’s nothing wrong with lowering the bar. It’s a challenge you’re doing to better yourself, so changing any arbitrary rules or adapting it to better suit your needs is always a good idea. If anything, you can always up the ante or lower it, depending on what you need. When you see your hobby as a chore you dread, it’s time to either take a step back or stop taking it so seriously.

That’s about all I’ve done in the time between last episode and the recording of this one, but I have a few days off so I’m hoping to get back into at least reading The Village again. If I do more, that’s awesome. If not, my expectations are manageable.

Since this update is so short, I figured I’d share some more of my process with you. For a long time I didn’t have a process, but around the time I started seriously thinking of ideas for this very podcast, I figured it was high time I made one.

The first step I did was figure out why I wanted to have a process. And the honest answer is because I want to finish projects fully so I can actually get them done.

The first thing I do is I organize my tools. First and foremost is my laptop, which I use to store all of my writing. I write digitally the vast majority of the time because I can type faster than my hand can move with a pen. Maybe I’ll handwrite a book in the future as a challenge for myself, but that’s far in the future if I do it at all, so yay for current me.

Next up is my Forest app on my phone. Forest is a productivity app that I love because unlike a timer, you can see your progress. You set a specific time, and at the end of it you grow a digital tree. You can see your progress through the day as it tracks, and you can also go back and see your weekly, monthly, and yearly progress. I’m one of those people that can like look at a timer and not feel like the time is ‘real’ because when the timer goes off, nothing happens but an alarm. I try to do a 5 minute warmup using just a regular timer because my free Forest app doesn’t go that short, then a break of like 2 or 3 minutes, and then 15 minutes of work. I try to work on a single project, but if I get inspired I write a few notes to myself on the side. Sometimes it’s physical, sometimes in my phone, sometimes just in a new document in my Scrivener file.

Next is candles. One thing about me is that I love candles. Lighting candles and having a nice scent is something that makes me feel like I have everything put together. I even have separate drafting and editing candles. My drafting one is sea mist and my editing one is coconut. I’m hoping that will act as writing triggers in the future since scent is one of the most powerful memory triggers.

Next is tea. I solely drink black Lipton because I’m a basic bitch. I also fix each mug with an ungodly amount of milk and sugar so it no longer tastes like tea, so there’s that.

Next is pen and paper. I know some of you are probably thinking ‘wait, didn’t you say that you type faster than you write?’ And yes. Yes I did, because I do. But using pen and paper helps me almost ‘unlock’ certain parts of my brain that don’t get stimulated by a computer, and it’s an awesome way of getting ideas out without worrying if they’re quote ‘good enough’ unquote. Sometimes I need a different method to get my creative juices flowing, and pen and paper is the way I do it.

This is a weird thing that I do rarely, when I’m really and hopelessly stuck- a rubber duck. I know, I know. But I read somewhere- and it may not even be true- that people who code software use them to talk out their problems in the code. There’s something about verbalizing blocks can help you work them out, and no one is available to listen to a writer talk 24/7. So a rubber duck is something that acts as a way to talk at something and get your thoughts out. I tend to record my rubber duck sessions so that I don’t have to remember every breakthrough.

Next up is star stickers. I found the method through a YouTuber named Alexa Donne. The point of the star sticker method is that if I’m a good noodle and write for 30 minutes, I get a shiny sticker. I get that star sticker for every 30 minutes I write. I also get a star for every thousand words, so if I do both I get two stickers. I know, it’s a little juvenile but sometimes you have to treat yourself like a kid. Plus, everyone I’ve ever met likes stickers. I decided to use it to my advantage.

After I have all my tools in place, I open both my current project and my free writing document. I use the free writing document when I’m stuck, and often it can start to shake things loose. If it doesn’t, I turn to either my physical writer’s notebook or the rubber duck

To write, I used to use Google docs, but since I heard tale that they’re using documents from there to teach AI, I stopped and moved exclusively to Scrivener. Is it a bit more inconvenient because I no longer have an app at my fingertips when I have an idea when I’m out and about? Yes, but I also have a notes app on my phone and can write things in there. Anything to disrupt the attempts of corporations to use AI to make art instead of humans. And that’s not me being ‘anti-computer-progress’ or whatever, it’s me doing my best to preserve people’s livelihoods and stop corporations from being able to use computers to do their jobs. Artists of all kinds deserve to be paid fairly, and AI is only hurting them. So I’m 100% against AI created so-called ‘art’.

That’s my process so far. I’m sure it will evolve and change as I do as a writer and human. And that’s something to embrace rather than fear. If something isn’t working like it used to, don’t be afraid to do what I always do- chuck it in the fuck it bucket and move on. Having to find new tools can be overwhelming, but once you do it makes your life a lot easier. And who doesn’t want an easier life?

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for coming with me on my journey through storytelling. I have a Tumblr at an act of will with hyphens between the words if you’d like to keep up with me there. I will see you in a month. Until then, I wish you well and happy writing.

[an-act-of-will]

Episode 4- Still Editing

Thanks for tuning in to your regularly-scheduled writing journey podcast, An Act of Will. I’m your host, Sydney. Let’s get started.

This is gonna be a short episode since I ended up not writing much more of this novel for quite a while- since early September and it’s now early November. Ouch. But hopefully moving forward I will make more progress in the novel, however slow it is.

As of writing this episode, I have had a realization I’m not quite sure how to feel about. In total I have ten scenes completed and two mostly-completed of the approximately sixty as a middle ground I need to add for now. The document is currently seventy-nine thousand, one hundred twenty six words out of my eighty thousand goal.

So I’m gonna blow past that word goal, just with the scenes I know I need and not even considering the red herring subplots I need to add. This is probably going to be a monster of a book, but I guess I just have to go about it the same way I always have- one word at a time.

But I made some progress, thankfully. I have a little notebook I started carrying around that I bound myself. It’s only my second bookbinding attempt so it’s loose, but I still like it. I wrote some of the spots I need to add scenes in the back, along with vague descriptions of what I need to write. I managed to write about three scenes longhand because I was away from my computer for a weekend. Thankfully I knew this ahead of time and was able to prepare a bit. But I actually enjoyed the process of writing away from the computer, though it had some ups and downs. Upside- no distractions. Downside- it was slow and I couldn’t read other scenes from information I had forgotten, though I just put the information I needed in brackets to be looked up later.

As a sidebar for the techniques I actually use to write, there are some that have remained constant over several projects. One is my gratuitous use of brackets. I use them for when I forget words and can only think of their definitions, for information I know I’ve written but don’t want to look for right now, research I need to do in the future, and bridging sentences I need to get to the next scene. I’ll give you an example of each.

When I forget words, as we all do, I write the vague meaning in brackets. I’ve forgotten the word ‘lunch’ and therefore wrote ‘midday meal’ in brackets.

For information I know I’ve written, most of the times it’s just character’s names, so I’ll put something like their job or relationship to my main character in brackets.

Research, when it comes up, is mostly things like ‘see if such and such a thing existed in such and such a year.’

For bridging sentences, that’s a little more tricky to explain. Sometimes it’s as simple as ‘they talk more’ when I just can’t think of more dialog at that moment, sometimes I put ‘fight scene’ for when I have an idea for after said fight scene.

For me, all of it boils down to one thing- momentum. If my momentum breaks for reading, researching, or staring off into space thinking, I can’t get back into writing as easily. With my brackets, I can keep going and fill in the details I need later. It’s a trick I’ve learned over the years, and it works really well.

I think the problem is that I have to read through my novel again in its entirety and see exactly what happens before and after the scenes I’m missing, not just the one-sentence description I have currently. I’m hoping that’s what it is, anyway. I’ll make more detailed notes in the margins and maybe that will unblock me.

I also started the Ray Bradbury Challenge to help me get in at least some reading and writing on days and weeks when I don’t feel like it. If you don’t know, the Ray Bradbury Challenge is when you read one poem, one essay, and one short story a day and write one short story a week. The original parameters are read every day for a thousand days and write every week for a year or more, but let’s just see how long I can keep up with it.

I’ve been using the poetry foundation, narrative magazine, and electric literature websites to get my reading in. I’ll link those in the description down below.

I will keep you updated on both my novel and challenge attempt as I continue, so stay tuned.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for coming with me on my journey through storytelling. I have a Tumblr at an act of will with hyphens between the words if you’d like to keep up with me there. I will see you in a month. Until then, I wish you well and happy writing.

[an-act-of-will]

I haven't written in my novel for a while, so why not start a new challenge, specifically the Ray Bradbury challenge? Help.

I mean, I do want to get better at short stories just to build my repertoire, but still.

[an-act-of-will]

Episode Four- Editing Part Two

Thanks for tuning in to your regularly-scheduled writing journey podcast, An Act of Will. I’m your host, Sydney. Let’s get started.

So I actually made a small blunder last episode. But, in my defense, Scrivener decided to give me the wrong word count. So my beginning draft was actually sixty-four thousand, two hundred sixty words, and not the fifty-seven thousand number I gave you. So technically I only have to write sixteen thousand words, which is a lot less ouch than my previous number. More of an ‘owie’ than a full ouch. But I re-configured the document so that my word count going forward will be accurate.

And I’m still deep in the editing trenches. This episode will cover one day of re-ordering scenes, and writing a few new ones over the past three weeks.

Yes, I looked at my tri-fold and decided to see if I could re-order one more time. I knew last time there was something just slightly off about it, but I had to stop and write down the missing scenes, as well as get ready for work.

I did my usual process- got my post its, page flags, writer’s notebook, and pen out; set my Forest timer, this time for twenty-five minutes; and started from the beginning.

I only did one twenty-five-minute sprint because I re-ordered some scenes, but not a ton. I also added two new scene post its, thankfully with only 3-5 more combined. That brings my total number of scenes I needed to add is fifty-six to seventy-four new scenes. Ouch, with feeling this time. I realized that in order to progress, I need to write at least a few of the scenes I’m missing. So that’s what I started to do.

I also put a moratorium on myself for changing existing scenes in my manuscript to re-order them. I didn’t even let myself read through it because then I knew I’d start to tinker. This had to be purely new work. So I went through my list of scenes to be written and started with the ones I had at least a vague idea of the content of.

After writing one scene for two twenty-five minute sessions, I had to leave for work. When I was there, I had the idea of making goals for myself and then doing something satisfying when I do. I thought of ways I could do it, and decided on making almost a ‘progress bar’ like in video games when you’re leveling up or completing a quest. Gamifying things tends to work for me, even though I don’t really play video games. I still like the aesthetic.

So I allowed myself to go full geek and did a couple of progress bars. One for overall word count that I capped at eighty thousand and one for scenes completed. I have pictures on my blog of them that I’ll link in the description.

To start the first progress bar I wrote the scene I was working on until I got to sixty thousand, just to have a nice round number to start with and to make the math easier because math is just not my strong suit. I decided on an increment of five thousand words, for a total of five major tick marks. I also made tick marks for every thousand along the way.

For the second progress bar, I consulted my list of scenes. I’ll have an ‘overall’ progress bar and then secondary progress bars so I can see my progress a bit more satisfyingly. On the page with the word count progress bar, I made the overall progress bar and shot for the approximate middle of sixty scenes.

Every week, I decided to make myself a little calendar and track how many words, scenes, and working minutes I did that week, plus any other wins, like small epiphanies or something. That served the function of both keeping a record and having a handy place to put the secondary progress bars.

I decided on the goal of writing five scenes per week. I’ll adjust that as needed. I did the same thing as I did with the first progress bar, this time with just the five tick marks that I’ll track by. I won’t give myself credit for half scenes, just because that would be really hard to track.

For the final progress bar, I decided I wanted to work at least an hour each day, so seven hours a week. I’ll adjust that as needed, too. I made fifteen-minute intervals for that one above each week. Since I normally work in twenty-minute bursts, I should theoretically get at least fifteen minutes every day. Is this a bit cheaty? I mean, a little bit, but it’s only for myself so I feel like seeing everyday progress is more important than holding yourself to some imagined ideal.

As I complete the progress bars, I get to use a colored pencil and fill them in with a different color every bar. That should be motivating for a giant completionist nerd like me.

Now for the actual writing. The first day I did one scene and wrote four thousand, two hundred, thirty-four words in two twenty-minute and two fifteen-minute working sessions, which added up to seventy minutes. So I met my hour goal that day.

That first day I also went through my scene list with the scenes numbered and made sub documents in my writing program with the scene description in brackets at the top of the document. I also changed all the icons on the document’s outline to be different and made a key so my goofy self won’t forget it.

If I never mentioned, I use Scrivener as a writing software. It’s about sixty dollars but I found it’s worth it because I chose to stop using google docs because I found out that the program doesn’t let people send not safe for work documents to each other to beta read, and because I heard that AI might be trained off documents written there. Since I want to stop any AI from replacing artists of any kind, I needed a new software. Most of the people I follow on youtube use scrivener, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I like it a lot, even though I’m probably not using it to its full potential and only have rudimentary skills with it. But that’s enough of me gushing about Scrivener.

The second day of writing, I had to decide on which scene to work on. I didn’t want to go chronologically because I had no idea for the content of most of them. I wanted to start with scenes I had a vague idea of to build my confidence and some momentum. So I picked a scene that fit that criteria. I started with one fifteen minute sprint to warm up. I had a singular bullet point that was an idea about the scene, so I started with that and saw where it took me. It ended up being an idea with legs, so after a five-minute break, I went at it again, this time for twenty minutes. Then another break, and then an attempt at another twenty minutes. I got distracted for half of it, so let’s call that one ten minutes. Then I took a break, then I did a ten minute session and then a fifteen. That pretty much tapped me out for the day, even though I didn’t actually finish the scene.

I was lucky enough that the next day I had free to work on my writing pretty much all day had a writing stream from one of my favorite writing youtubers/streamers Kate Cavanaugh that I’ll link in the description. Because of the twitch stream, I got 57 minutes which almost completed my entire goal for the day. I also added one thousand ninety-nine words to my document and pretty much finished the scene I was working on. I still had a bit to go, but I figured just a paragraph or two.

After all that writing, I needed to get away from the computer for a bit. I decided to spend some time walking around my neighborhood playing Pokemon Go. Is it way past its popularity? Yes. Yes it is. But I still like it and recently remembered its existence. I also remembered that one of the aspects of the game is that you walk a certain distance to hatch eggs. I had finished up my last egg the day before this stream and thrown in an ambitious ten kilometer egg. I did point one kilometers that first day. During my walk, I did one point eight additional kilometers of progress, or just over a mile in American. I also caught a few Pokemon and filled my whole 300 capacity section so I had to get rid of some. I just did the duplicates I had.

After the walk, I did more writing. I did a ten minute sprint, which completed the last bit of my hour goal for the day. In that time, I got three hundred thirty-two words which covered finishing the scene I was working on and starting on the next one I had marked. When the timer was up, I went through the scene list and marked the next one I wanted to work on with the icon I had designated for that purpose so that I don’t lose momentum later.

Then I decided to take a break from writing but still keep to the same task. I made myself a checklist of the scenes I need to do. The gel pen list from my ‘to move’ list wasn’t working out because a) I ended up having to move way more than I expected and b) the colors were just too bright and light to my eyes, so I just used black ink. I figured this would be a better checklist anyhow because I know I need to add at least this many scenes. I decided to do the thirty-three spots to add scenes, not the actual number of scenes. This way my wrist wouldn’t get tired and I wouldn’t scream when I saw how many I need written down. I just put the numbers of the spot according to my sticky notes and my document, not the descriptions of scenes. This way, it didn’t look like a wall of text and I can add the dates of when I completed each scene as documentation, if just for myself. And for you, of course.

Then, because my writing notebook’s cover had literally fallen off and I had to tape it back together, I decided to glue the binding back in. And because my hour goal for the day had been reached, I treated myself to an Internet break. I still wanted to think about writing, though, and not just watch people play video games, so I kept myself to writing vlogs. I’ll link the writing youtubers I watched that day down in the description. I don’t make any videos myself because I hate filming and this podcast is my replacement for vlogging, but I find watching others vlog super interesting. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. [[Link Diane mariee and Brielle writes]]

After the vlogs, I checked on my writing notebook and how the glue decided to hold the binding and cover together. It was, indeed, holding, so I went ahead and filled in my progress bars. And after that, I actually stopped for the day. I had reached my hour goal and I had finished the scene I spent two days working on, so I didn’t want to push it and get burnt out.

Over the next three days, I got little to no work done unfortunately. Then I managed to get my butt in the chair and write. I completed a couple short scenes in a few sprints so I was feeling better about it. I filled in my overall scene progress bar and my weekly progress bar and stopped for the day. Again, it’d been a couple days so I didn’t want to push it.

So, to recap: I wrote six scenes the first week, most of them pretty short so I got to almost seventy-four thousand words. Considering my goal for this draft is eighty thousand, I feel pretty good about that!

I have no idea how long the revising process will take for this draft, but I will continue to take you with me.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for coming with me on my journey through storytelling. I have a Tumblr at an act of will with hyphens between the words if you’d like to keep up with me there. I will see you in a week. Until then, I wish you well and happy writing.

[an-act-of-will]

Episode 2 Transcript

Thanks for tuning in to your regularly-scheduled writing journey podcast, An Act of Will. I’m your host, Sydney. Let’s get started.

Ok, so I seriously dropped the ball in terms of keeping up with this podcast, and honestly writing at all. This episode and the next were already written but never recorded, so I’ll just go through them and then the third episode from now I’ll catch you up on the new stuff. I won’t take a month to upload- instead, I’ll post this episode, then the next episode in a week, then the episode for where I actually am in my process a week after that.

I started editing my most-complete novel idea. I’ll call it The Village here. I’m on draft 5.5 because this draft is weaving in scenes more than anything, so it’ll probably be really similar to my previous draft. I took notes on draft 5 in my writing software so hopefully that will make it easier. I’m calling it draft 5.5 aloud, but in my computer it will be version 6 because drafts and versions are different for me. To me, a ‘draft’ is more complete, for lack of a better word, and a ‘version’ is any time you make edits. I rarely have half drafts.

The way I decided to edit is to write every major scene on white index cards and use copic markers to color code the top according to what act the scene is in, plus which major characters are in each scene. I only have five main characters I thought were important enough to have their own color, so that would be few enough that I wasn’t overwhelmed. Honestly, I fell off the ‘denoting what characters’ part. I also wrote in pencil what chapter the scene appears in and numbered the back so I know where I originally had them when I move them. I’ll finalize the order later, but I just need some record because there’s a lot of them, too many for a picture.

I also cut down card stock I had lying around to be roughly color-coded to what I decided to be my act color to be sub-scenes that are still scenes, just not major ones. I also had the transitional scenes between acts written on a different color of card stock so it stands out more to my eyes.

So I used: green for act one, pink for act two, blue for act three, and purple for transitional scenes. I wrote on the back of the purple ones which acts they served as a transition for and numbered those, too. I also had red scenes I know I need to move but can see where they fit in later when it’s time to re-arrange.

I actually color-coded the re-ordering as well. I also added page flags. Look at me, being all organized. I made a key because my brain will look at this later and be like ‘what does yellow mean again?’

Because it’s a mystery, I had blue page flags for general clues, yellow for specific clues, and red for red herrings. I seriously need to add a lot more of those. Then there’s orange for interviews my main character conducts and purple for re-interviews. Draft 5 contained a grand total of four interviews, and no re-interviews, so I knew I would have to write a lot more in to flesh out the mystery more because it felt way too easy and rushed when I re-read it. And, since there’s a romance subplot, pink for that. I need a lot more of those scenes, too.

Sticky notes also came into play. I added specific colors to the scenes that mean ‘move earlier’ or ‘move later.’

It seems super extra, and it took me a little over three working hours minus breaks to do it, but it was so important and so useful. It’s helpful for me to step away from digital and move to real life so I can physically move scenes around without worrying about having to undo any work I copy-pasted. Plus, like I said, I have a record if I need to change it back. Not as easy to do if you’ve moved five scenes after the one you decide works better where it originally was.

I used a thirty minute working session for the first one and forty-five for the rest because most of the first session was spent making a key and cutting down the card stock. I use an app called Forest to time myself because it gives me satisfaction to have a representation of the work I’m doing. Every session I complete, I grow a digital tree and it keeps count of how long I’ve worked that day at the top of the screen. Plus, I can look back and see how productive I was during the week and get the same satisfaction.

I thought I would really dislike editing- I always have in the past- but the process made it so easy, even a little fun. I’m making the story better without a whole lot of effort past the initial one with writing all the scenes down. I think I was avoiding doing this because I knew I would have to write a lot of scenes whole-cloth, but I kind of tricked my brain into thinking that those would be like drafting again. Will it majorly suck that those scenes will be first draft level instead of draft 5.5 level? Yes. But it has to be done.

After the index cards, card stock, page flags, and sticky notes were all finished, I decided the first thing to do was to choose an ‘editing’ candle. Yes, I know, it’s a weird first step. But I had a really little one on my desk that I literally never used, and figured that since scent is one of the most powerful memory triggers, that maybe I could use it to my advantage and light the candle every time I edit and it would keep me focused and not dawdling on the internet. Hey, I’m a candle hoarder and decided to use that to my advantage.

I then got down to the business of actually editing. I made a list of what scenes needed to be moved for sure. I have a picture-laden post on my blog on that I’ll link down below if you’re interested in seeing it. I’ll also describe it here.

So first I went through all my index cards for act 2, writing in my writing journal the scene summary on the red cards which I used to denote the scenes that need to be moved. I started with act two because surprisingly, I didn’t need to move any scenes from act one, though I probably will once I start adding scenes.

I changed gel pen color every scene, then I wrote down the chapter the scene appears in in my current draft in black so it stands out from the summary. I also added a short note to where it could be moved if I had a thought about it, also in black ink. As I did this, I made small boxes to the left of the scene summary matching the scene’s color so I can check them off when I complete them.

I used different colors because a) it looks prettier and b) it can sometimes be hard for me to separate tasks and similar things when it’s all one color of ink. It honestly looks like a wall of text to me if I don’t concentrate.

After I made the list, it was time to get a tri-fold poster board and go back to the index cards.

I arranged all of the act two cards on a tri-fold poster board so it didn’t take up as much room as the floor. Tri-folds are able to be folded away when I’m not using it, which is so useful because I could walk away and not have to clean up and then set up everything again.

So I set up my handy-dandy Forest app timer and got to work. I did two thirty minute work sessions that first day.

I discovered that every single one of my index cards, from all the acts, actually fit on the board. It’s tight, but they fit. This was good, because then I could see all of them at once and move them freely.

I ended up having to move more than just the red cards, which surprised me. But that’s the beauty of this method- you can just move an index card without having to copy-paste a whole scene.

When I thought I had a good re-ordering, I wrote in my writing journal what went where. To do that, I wrote down the original act the card belonged to and the original scene number. I made sure to title it as the first version of the re-ordering so if that changes, I’ll be able to tell which attempt worked the best. Then, the beauty of the trifold came in- I folded it away and leaned it against the wall in my room.

The next day I went at it fresh.

I, again, did thirty minute work sessions with about two minutes in between. Looking back, I should have done five minute breaks because after two sessions, my brain became goo. I took an hour break to let my brain rest.

But, thankfully, before my brain gooified I did some more work. I moved some scenes around and even saw where I could add scenes. I added post its in a different color to the places I thought I could add them and wrote a short description of what I thought the scene could be. By ‘short’ I mean five words or less. Then in my writing journal I wrote the place, the summary, and any more thoughts on what the scenes could contain. Unfortunately, I had few of the last point. But I still wanted to note it down in case I had ideas in the future.

And sidebar- I just realized I never told you guys what this story’s word count is. The latest version- version five- is fifty-seven thousand, one hundred sixty-nine words. Now, most writers know that a novel generally falls around the fifty-thousand word mark. I felt because I was over that benchmark, I was in good shape.

Out of pure curiosity, I looked up what an average word count by genre was. But when I found a source for my innocent query, which I’ll link in the description below, my heart sunk. Now, word count isn’t the only benchmark to shoot for when you’re writing, and I know that. You can have a novel that is outside those bounds in either direction and still be amazing. But according to the source I found, an average mystery is eighty to ninety thousand words. And thrillers tend to be eighty to a hundred thousand words. Mine is a mix of both genres. Ouch.

Now I do have to add scenes as I mentioned previously, but how the everliving Hell am I gonna write at least an extra twenty-three thousand words? That’s a lot of words!

Hopefully as I start to write the scenes I need to add, that gap will slowly close, but thinking about it makes me want to scream. Ah. The life of a writer.

After the hour break, my brain felt refreshed and I was able to go at it again. This time, I learned my lesson. I shortened the working sessions to twenty-five minutes and took breaks of five minutes. Hey, any work is work and the last sessions were hard for me. Take care of your brain, folks, you only have one and it gets tired.

I did two twenty-five minute work sessions and moved a few more scenes, enough to where I actually had to move index cards to fill in space because two or more major scenes had to move, and I made note of a few spaces I could add more. I also realized I had to split two scenes into two, so that was two half-scenes I had to move. Thankfully they’re more or less written, so I just have to add to them and then change them slightly so that they fit in the new order.

Then, because I had work soon after that, I wrote down this order in the same way I did the first re-ordering, including where I thought I could add scenes.

So all in all, I spent a hundred five working minutes ordering all one hundred twenty-eight original scene cards, and thirty-one spaces of where to add scenes, some with multiple scenes to be added. So with the multiple scenes taken into account, I have about fifty three to over seventy-one scenes to add. Ouch. I know, that’s a pretty big spread, but most of them were like, add two or three scenes here or one or two there. A few I had four plus scenes, but those will likely be short bridge scenes. So, if I don’t add any more scenes to my rough plans, which is doubtful, I’ll have one hundred eighty-one to one hundred ninety-nine scenes in total.

I feel pretty good about this re-order. I knew I definitely have some spots where I need to adjust, and way more scenes to add, but it’s coming along and progressing.

After this re-order, I made a list of the locations of the scenes I need to add and what they could possibly be about. I only had a couple of ideas of the content because I mostly just had a feeling that there should be more space between the existing scenes to space out plot points. So I knew they had to exist, but just not what they’d contain.

I’m not doing this purely to boost my word count, though that’s a welcome side effect. I’m doing this because my draft feels a little rushed most of the time and too easy of a mystery.

So not only do I have to add the scenes in the spaces I know about currently, I pretty much have to develop entire subplots with red herrings. My guess is that after I add the scenes in the places I know about currently, I’ll have to use some way to kind of track those red herrings. I don’t have any ideas currently, but I really hope I won’t need a cork board, tacks, and red string.

But I’m gonna focus on the scenes I know I need to add right now and hopefully those subplots will come to me.

Those were my first two editing days after the original scene cards. My grand total for those two days was one hundred seventy minutes, or just under eight hours. I’ll still work on editing, I promise.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for coming with me on my journey through storytelling. I have a Tumblr at an act of will with hyphens between the words if you’d like to keep up with me there. I will see you in a week. Until then, I wish you well and happy writing.

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Why do I suddenly want to write an epistolary novel, crap.

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Not exactly writing but writing-adjacent: I've been re-watching videos in my 'inspiring' playlist on youtube and found one I had almost forgotten about: Struthless (who I find hilarious and mind-blowing in terms of changing my perspective and making me see simple solutions) and his video on his DIY life organizational system. So basically it's a corkboard of projects he's decided on, with various ways of tracking each. Rest under a readmore bc I'm pretty sure this will get long-ish.

I don't have a corkboard, but I do have a big blank wall that I could use. So I decided on three projects: my podcast, actual writing, and looking for a job that will pay the bills in the meantime. So I broke down my big three current projects into steps.

One of which, the podcast, is more of a cycle so that'll be a little more difficult but doable. Basically, the cycle (or wheel that I'll be trying to make if I can) is: writing episode with the stuff I've been doing, recording, editing, doing the description and stuff, and posting. Then it resets for the next month.

The next is actual writing. I only have one project at the moment, and I already have progress bars for that. I'll be keeping up with that so I'll probably just duplicate those.

The third is a job. I have an idea for what to do and just have to do my resume over again so that's just doing adult things.

I do like to gamify things, so this might help me. Along with physically seeing it every day, so that'll probably help too. And seeing physical progress will help a lot.

I will make a basic form in the morning just to see how I like it and if I stick with it for a month before putting more effort into making it fun. That's the plan, anyway. I'll keep watching the playlist I've curated and taking notes, so that should spark more ideas (hopefully).

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In other news, I have severely underestimated the word count I need for the amount of scenes I have to add. And yes, I know word count isn't everything but still.

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So I managed to write a couple of scenes away from my computer and just now transcribed them into the document. I'll call that a win though, because I haven't worked in this project in quite a while.

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Augh I want to have a physical copy of the descriptions and placement of the scenes I need to write, but I can't decide which of my hoard of notebooks I should use. I mean, I have one next to me, but it's so small. Whatever, it's here. I can do at least some in it, I'm sure.

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I haven't touched my work in a while, unfortunately. But I'm working on some semblance of a 'schedule' to try to ease myself back in, starting with my most complete draft.

I pretty much just have to write scenes to fill in gaps, but unfortunately for most of them I have no idea what they could contain. So that's the first order of business: figure out what the scenes should be about concretely.

I have 24 spots remaining to fill, but some have two or three scenes per, some even what I called 'four plus.' So I do have to kind of figure out what to write. Thankfully I took notes on the side, but most are just 'here is where the scene needs to be' and only a few have actual ideas. So I think I'll take two weeks to brainstorm, figure it out. I'll start next week but I think I'll take today to write down in a physical journal where the scenes are and my vague ideas for them, this way I can work on them when I'm away from my computer.

Once I have a more concrete plan, I will certainly share it here!

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My favorite Shakespeare thing is when he writes a major plot point but just has someone tell us about it to save on special effects.

Hamlet gets kidnapped by pirates but we don’t see that part. It’s a letter.

The Oracle of Delphi shows up in the Winter’s Tale and rather than do all the special effects required to make that adequately supernatural, two guys come on stage and go “woah that was cool”

There’s a big storm on the night that Duncan is murdered and we learn about this when half the cast of Macbeth says “sure was stormy last night”

Shakespeare, the OG low-budget director taking the easy way out.

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Just figured out a software that could quite possibly allow me to use a PNGtuber to POSSIBLY stream. I like having privacy and just don’t want my face out there, so I MIGHT do that. I haven’t decided yet though.