Chop, Chop, Chop!

This week, I literally cut up my paper and pasted back together again. I knew that all of the words were there but the flow was just not coming together in the right order. With the recommendation of a trusted friend, I printed out my manuscript and sat down with a pair of scissors. Old time methods work. 

What was nice about spreading out the 30 odd pages was that I could sit and rearrange much better than scrolling up and down on my monitor. I cut things by paragraph and even sentences. To make sure my transitions into the next section were clear, I pulled out topic sentences from the paragraphs above and below. In the end, I was pleased for how quickly the narrative came together. A good solid afternoon of arranging in almost every possible way, I ended up being able to clearly observe where my flows were not as streamlined. I also realized in several instances that while an idea was clear in my head, it was definitely not clearly written on paper. 

In the end, it took me three more days of writing and rearranging before I ended up with a draft that I am more or less happy to label Final Version 1. There will be a few more versions of this draft before it gets sent off for review.