The novel

My dear little novel has been sitting on my harddrive for a while now. It was finished officially on November 30th, then sat until I fixed the typos in January. Now it is March, and it’s time to march on with the next draft.

Step 1: go through and make a scene list, on paper where I can see it properly and draw squiggles as necessary, and identify any structural problems or symbols that go astray.

Step 2: make structural changes identified in step 1, creating new draft to be saved as such.

Step 3: go through the manuscript using track changes to make comments and add to scenes.

Step 4: go through yWriter and incorporate tracked changes, reconsidering and adding to them with the benefit of this second thought, creating next new draft.

Step 5: dump to rtf and read latest draft with track changes on in case thoughts are had, then create new plan for next steps.

I don’t know how long each of these steps will take so I don’t so much want to timetable it as make sure I work on it regularly. This plan is the most progress I’ve made in two months so I feel that’s a good start.

I also feel a horrible stabbing pain in my chest. This is unlikely to be a heart attack as I am 25 and it’s been going on all day and had mild precursors last night. Perhaps I was stabbed in the chest yesterday and didn’t notice? Or maybe my left and most literary lung has collapsed in protest to my continual going to work when there is more important work to be done.