A Frolicking Muse

If you are one of my zillions of fans, you know that I'm always coming up with some new process to circumvent or streamline what's not working in my current writing process. Whether it's new software - I'm the Queen of Software, a new book, listening to and completing exercises from a RWA workshop. From reorganizing the files and storyboard in Scrivener or Write It Now to printing out calendars and using post-its to analyze my plot lines. And much more.

I've been writing on TR now for over a year. Granted it started off as a mystery romance and has morphed into a paranormal mystery romance urban fantasy, sort of. The world building took forever. Then I got the Sh$$ scared out of me as I got closer to the end and the dragging and dropping, reorganizing, analyzing (there's a reason that word starts with A-N-A-L) and thinking seemed to have taken on a life of it's own.

Last week, I posted that I was going to just go forward, no matter what and chose to do it the way I started out - with a really good gel pen and a spiral bound hard backed notebook. This is working so well, I may do all my first drafts from now on manually. Aack, ME writing without any software!

A few PROs I've noticed:
1. I'm NOT on the computer to get distracted.
2. I'm NOT in my favorite environment, software, to explore better ways to analyze, organize and format the story.
3. My muse loves working with the characters and plot on the fly. She skips ahead - yes I finally know it's a she - to figure out what directions the plot needs to go while I'm writing the current scene. SHE doesn't like creating on the computer.
4. I remember what I've written better. When I pick up the notebook again, I don't have to re-read as much. For me, handwriting notes has always helped me retain the information so that makes sense.
5. I can carry that little notebook and pen with me where ever so I'm able to make better use of those little moments of writing time.
6. It seems that when I write on the computer I'm consciously or unconsciously keeping track of word count, giving myself mental pats for wordiness. THe handwriting seems to entail less wandering around, more suitable material.

The CONs:
1. Yeah, eventually I'll have to type the whole friggin thing into the computer. But that should serve as a excellent first revision. I hope.
2. The re-writing.
3. No ability to cut and past but hey, I'm not supposed to be revising on the first draft right?

Anyway, I'm pleased that I was able to post what I intended to do and for once I can report that I did it. And it worked! IS working, gotta be careful about those blanket statements made to a global audience who may hold me to it.

TR is now at 103k. Wrote almost 10k this week - see there I go again. I'm going to stop tracking that statistic until the last couple revisions when it's necessary. My muse is skipping through a field of butterflies.