From Brooding to Flitting

In my last entry, I wrote of "brooding" over the current structure of BLUFF (book two in my Lark Chadwick Series.) During last month's rewrite process, I had a great creative experience: I call it "flitting."

It starts with good organization.

In my computer, a new manuscript draft gets a new folder. Each chapter/scene gets its own sequentially-numbered slot along with a nickname so that at a birds-eye glance I have a visual cue as to what happens where. I also have a scene outline -- one page (it's become 6) where all the scenes are thumbnailed.

All the ponderous brooding and wholesale rearranging I did during the rewrite process paid off when I discovered "flitting."

Here's how it works:

In Flit Mode, I can decide to dip into the manuscript where ever I want, make the necessary changes, jump back to the scene overview to decide what needs to be worked out next. I don't have to get bogged down on tedious line-by-line edits (yet). For now, I simply flit all over the manuscript making repairs, smoothing, adding, fixing.

It feels great.

And I'm making progress (or am sufficiently deluded into believing that I am).

Of course, all you serious writers out there have been doing this -- or something way better -- for years, but for me it was a Eureka Moment I had to share.

Hope it helps.

Your thoughts?

JD