I broke 30,000 words this morning on the transcription of the new project. That puts me firmly in novella territory and leads me to believe I’ll end up near novel territory. I have about 1/3-1/4 of the pages left to transcribe.
I know the writers like to hear about other people’s processes, so this is how it’s come so far:
Zero-draft = 159 handwritten pages in an old school composition book. Reverse engineered table-of-contents on the last page, to help in case I need to find something later.
Shitty 1st-draft = transcription of notebook into Scrivener. No proof reading, no fixing typos. Just transcribe to let my brain absorb what was in zero-draft. I do split up sections into individual text-cards, so I can drag and drop/re-order scenes as needed moving forward. I also categorize/color-code into folders for what I see the main story threads. All of one story line together/same-color.
A note on Scrivener. I have attempted to use it on multiple projects before, but until right now it has proved more frustration than help. It’s not the most intuitive program for me, and all the bells and whistles would distract me while drafting. But since I zero drafted on paper that technical distraction is not so problematic in 1st draft mode. I am extremely hopeful it will work well for the 2nd draft & compilation of the MS, and will likely then export to Words and fine-tune in there.
I’ve been through 4-5 working titles, but only in the last week when I really understood how all the themes/story-lines were fitting together did I find one that feels like it will stick. But that title’s a secret until I’m ready to find beta readers.
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This week’s 7 cards is out. Continue to rest and take care of yourself. We’ve been through some big changes the past couple weeks and our bodies need time to process and recover.