I’m almost to the point where I’m happy with what I’m doing on my novel. It’s been a long struggle, and hasn’t gotten much easier but I’m a lot more confident and satisfied with the results now since I started studying scene arrangements and growing my story. The new version of the novel won’t look very much like that first draft I did back in November, and trust me–that’s a good thing.

If I didn’t like the drafting process before, I especially don’t like it now. But now I’ve got the best reason I could possibly have; I’m succeeding by my own different method. I think I also mentioned how I’ve been going one scene at a time, and whipping each scene in shape.

When it comes time for the next novel, I should have the process well-ironed out. Starting fresh, I think I will take everything that I have–all the elements I’m sure of, my starting points, and do a nice template scene arrangement with the elements I know. Why is this helpful? Because then you just connect the dots and fill in the gaps. And if you understand that the scene arrangement follows a certain structure, then you already know the type of content you need to provide. The rest is just creativity and a little work. A single-sentence synopsis for each scene would be enough–enough to give you an idea of where you’re headed.

It feels much more rewarding to start with small pieces and build from there. Now the only question is if I can finish this up by November. I’ve got two deadlines in November. One is I’m going to start NaNoWriMo again. But I’m not sure I’ll finish it, because my second deadline for November is the 28th–my wife’s due date for our first child.

I’ve got a lot to do, and not much time to do it!

UPDATE: Therese over at Writer Unboxed has a neat post on Swaddling Your Manuscript. I don’t know if I’m swaddling it, but I’ll sure be swaddling something else soon enough!