I am so close to the end of revisionland I could throw rocks at whatever land it is that lies beyond revisionland from here.

Technically, I don’t have any more writing-writing left. But there is ordering and formatting and fun stuff like that between here and the point of done-done so it doesn’t feel finished yet.

It doesn’t feel finished in general, actually. There’s something missing that I can’t quite put my finger on. I’m hoping my team of fabulous beta readers will be able to help with that, and I’ll be able to give it another post-beta polish after they read it.

But for now it is index card time! I am sure most writers do this in outlining phases, but in my wacky, non-linear way I seem to have made a habit of writing out of order and worrying about how to put all the pieces together after the fact.

I’ve added and dropped enough sections from the previous draft that I have some serious reordering to do. So I made all new index cards.

index cards

They’re color-coded by type of chapter (circus tents proper got to be silver this time around, because metallic silver Sharpie is always good times) and then color-coded again by which characters are featured. These still need dates written on them, I have those broken down on a list (in approximate book order and again chronologically.)

Tomorrow I get to spread them all out on the floor and play the “no, this has to come before that” and “too much of this character in this area” and “Bucket, stop sitting on the index cards” game. It’s a good game, until kittens start eating the cards.

I am so ready to hand this off to the beta brigade, and distract myself with tarot kings and NaNoWriMo planning while I wait for feedback.

Categories: writing

4 Comments

Liz · October 7, 2009 at 6:15 pm

I could throw rocks at whatever land it is that lies beyond revisionland

Hey, that’s my head! 🙂

Steph · October 8, 2009 at 9:49 am

Your index-card system looks and sounds awesome!

Paul · October 8, 2009 at 12:37 pm

Well done for being nearly there!

Your system with the index cards sounds great – and really fun, too, in giving you such a view from the overall structure right down to the detail. I hope that goes well today – and maybe that will even help you spot what’s missing, or else decide that, actually, you’re pretty pleased with it after all…

erin · October 9, 2009 at 10:27 am

Hee! Thanks guys, it’s a really helpful visual at this stage, especially the color-coding. All done now! Just wrestling with formatting and then it’s out of here into that scary land beyond revisionland that Liz inhabits!

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