The re-write of Planes Shifter is going surprisingly well.
I’ve written at least 429 words a day for 46 days in a row now. That’s 19,700 words. And in reality, as I often go over the minimum; I’ve written 32,522.
– I re-outlined, revised the first few chapters and then re-outlined once the beginning was settled.
– I’ve pasted in scenes from the previous draft (colour coded in green so I know they’re not new words) and written a short beat / scene summary between # symbols so that I can keep track of my individual scenes in the main novel file.
Unless I’m really struggling for wordcount, I’m keeping the edits in order of the story. This means that I have a fully written/edited beginning, and then a few blocks of written/polished prose in patches which I chose to write when I struggled. They’re not forced in the way NaNoWriMo rubbish is thrown on the page [which I’ve certainly done before], but by reaching forward to an emotional or descriptive passage ahead, I find something to write about.
Thus, I have two wordcounts – the “edited, polished, beginning to current place in this new draft” amount and the “this is how many words are in my word document, including pasted words I may cut and summary sentences” amount.
The first one is currently at 35,000 words. The second is at 53,200.
I’ve completed/edited 26 scenes (~1.5k each) and have 26 scenes to go. That should get me to 75k by the end. So I’m around 50% through, and most of what I have left to write is new material entirely. I’m not yet sure if that’s going to make things go faster or slower.
I haven’t rewritten a whole book before, and as I complete this redraft, I’m tweaking the process a little more.
– I began by flitting between scenes; not in order. But I found myself confused. So that’s an option to keep for a last resort
– In the past, I’ve gone to research things there and then. This time, I’m underlining the words and putting a note in my notes file.
– I’ve also been listening to podcasts and videos about writing that mean I want to tweak my beginning scene. But I’ve put notes in the notes file and left the scene as it currently stands.
– I’m also keeping check of the subplots; something I may have decided before hand, and then just looked to add something which build on that in certain scenes. This time it’s a planned place, a plotted event which occurs and if something new crops up, I’ll stop and re-outline — tweak my notes file to match.
I’m not sure how much better/worse/the same this draft will be, but it’s definitely a learning draft. And it’s easier to keep track of than the ones ones, which I’d say is definitely a positive.