Novel Update

It’s been a while since I gave an update on my actual writing. The novel I mean. I am about halfway through the third draft, though I kind of consider it my second draft since the first was so bad that I scrapped it almost entirely.

The hardest part about the work I’m doing right now is getting over the idea that sections are almost done. For instance, right now I’m working on adding a character. I’m glad he’s come into the story, he brings a sense of balance, but I get really annoyed when I have to go back into chapters that I thought were getting close to done and pull them apart to insert this new guy.

My latest trick is using the XX tag. If I’m writing something new and it occurs to me that there are revisions that need to be done in another section, but I don’t want to get side tracked from the work I’m actually doing, I type “XX – need to make sure this is consistent throughout” or “XX – should they kiss?” and just move right over it. Then, later, it’s easy to do a search for “XX” and jump from one note to the next.

It occurs to me, just now, that I could also just use the “note” function in the new word program. That would probably be even easier, as long as the notes print out along with the body of the text. Anyone out there know how that works?Funny I never thought of that before. I guess I’m just a creature of habit.