You know, it's pretty bad when you're squinting at your own notes in the margin and wondering what the heck you were thinking when you wrote whatever it is. Such is my state at this stage of the current work-in-progress. Basically, I'm going through the Messy Draft and inputting changes into a new draft.
Sounds simple, right? Not when you've got teeny-tiny notes in the margins and between lines, and arrows, and highlighted sections, and new material on the backs of pages, or on other pages attached. How many notes? How much new material? I have used up at least one pen and one notepad.
There's one other problem: I tend to revise my revisions as I input. The trouble here is that when I do this, I'm generally only "fixing" one small section. I may be forgetting the general gist of that particular page or bit of scene, working on pruning the tree while forgetting the forest. So I have to be careful not to do too much of that.
I had a wee moment of panic this morning. I couldn't find three chapters of the hard copy. I have since concluded that that's because the material in those chapters either got moved or deleted. I hope, anyway. If, when I read through this draft later, I discover a huge hunk of plot missing? I'll have to go to the ol' "holding box" and look for pages. I've learned not to recycle work pages until the book is done, just in case. It's saved my bacon more than once.
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