My Writing Process, Part Three

As with the chef who may have practiced making your bbq chicken pizza twenty times

before it became your favorite, I may rewrite sections of my narrative several times until

it comes out to my satisfaction. The beginning may be moved to the end. Or vice versa.

My favorite scenes could be deleted from this next novel and perhaps saved for the after that. Every creator learns from trial and error.

And so, the tale of my writing process continues.

Splitting

The firewood crew is making good progress. With a front-end loader buckets of

rounds are loaded by hand onto the hydraulic splitter where a multi-bladed maul

punctures the end of each piece forming four smaller pieces sized to my woodstove.

Then each split falls onto a conveyor and is ready to be carried to the back of a delivery

truck. Sometimes the conveyor breaks down or the truck is in the shop for repairs. That

slows the efficient progress of the job.

Things get more interesting after I review my rewrite, reading it like the novel I

want it to be. Sections where the characters are strong and the narrative flows bring

smiles to my heart and mind. Scenes out of place, run-on sentences, errors in syntax

jump right out, blocking the storyline. The solution might be an overhaul, a splitting into

pieces using a technique called “inside outlining” where the scenes are reviewed, then

placed in proper sequence.

My own process slows and may even come to a stop when the split scenes don’t

fit together smoothly. Perhaps that happens because there are so many options of how

they could be reunited to make the reading flow smoother. I must choose the best way.

Whatever the cause, I often stop, take a break until the way ahead is clear.

Or the truck returns from the shop.