Debbie Robson's Blog - Posts Tagged "scrivener"
Charting the Progress of Your Manuscript
In my original post on wordpress 25/6 I featured a photo of my record of my pages written. Simply with date, chapter and pages recorded.
As you can see I’m old school! Well, at least as far as keeping a record of my writing progress goes. Paris Next Week is my seventh manuscript. Yes, I love bashing my head against a brick wall! The first three manuscripts I can’t actually remember keeping a record of each page written. I’m pretty sure it all started with Tomaree. I was, by that time (early 2002) becoming more organised and setting goals. The main goal was – a page a day! A page a day is of course a manuscript in a year but as you can see from the very battered piece of paper covering the last three months, I’m only averaging slightly half that. I am, though, happy with my progress.
Of course there are many programs now that a writer can use to chart their progress and keep all their notes organised. I won’t discuss them all here as I don’t use them, lol. My project management tool is a notebook!
ep! In I keep very scattered notes but as I write I generally circle what I need to research further. I keep this with me at all times. When I’m reading research material I often jot notes down quickly. If a line from a character starts reverberating in my head, such as the simple words: “Money follows you.” from the wealthy Lilith, I jot that down too. Any more than a sentence though and I’ll have the laptop out pronto.
The main purpose of this post though is advice that covers all forms of record keeping and that is be generous! It really does help keep you motivated. I found this out by Tomaree and it’s my common practice now. Don’t worry if you’ve only written a few lines (generally you’ll find at the start of a new scene or chapter) put down half a page! If you look closely at the sheet above, you’ll see lots of 1/2 pages. You’ll find too that even being generous when you do a page count, reconciled with what you’ve written, you’ll still be missing a few pages – page breaks of course!
I wrote 10 1/2 pages this March, only 2 1/2 pages in April, 10 1/2 in May and I have so far written another 10 1/2 this month. April I was on holidays painting doors and architraves in my house and my Mum came to stay. I was also checking over my Darlinghurst research. In May the next chapter required a bit of research in France and I’m currently researching crime scene practices in the 1920s regarding the discovery of a dead body.
By keeping this simple record you can actually see your month by month progress and highlight the months, where perhaps you have fallen behind. If I’m doing a lot of research, I will often note that research on the days I’m not writing. After all, it is progress too! If you don’t keep a record of each page written, give it a try. Don’t forget to record those half pages, keep at your writing and watch the pages mount up!
As you can see I’m old school! Well, at least as far as keeping a record of my writing progress goes. Paris Next Week is my seventh manuscript. Yes, I love bashing my head against a brick wall! The first three manuscripts I can’t actually remember keeping a record of each page written. I’m pretty sure it all started with Tomaree. I was, by that time (early 2002) becoming more organised and setting goals. The main goal was – a page a day! A page a day is of course a manuscript in a year but as you can see from the very battered piece of paper covering the last three months, I’m only averaging slightly half that. I am, though, happy with my progress.
Of course there are many programs now that a writer can use to chart their progress and keep all their notes organised. I won’t discuss them all here as I don’t use them, lol. My project management tool is a notebook!
ep! In I keep very scattered notes but as I write I generally circle what I need to research further. I keep this with me at all times. When I’m reading research material I often jot notes down quickly. If a line from a character starts reverberating in my head, such as the simple words: “Money follows you.” from the wealthy Lilith, I jot that down too. Any more than a sentence though and I’ll have the laptop out pronto.
The main purpose of this post though is advice that covers all forms of record keeping and that is be generous! It really does help keep you motivated. I found this out by Tomaree and it’s my common practice now. Don’t worry if you’ve only written a few lines (generally you’ll find at the start of a new scene or chapter) put down half a page! If you look closely at the sheet above, you’ll see lots of 1/2 pages. You’ll find too that even being generous when you do a page count, reconciled with what you’ve written, you’ll still be missing a few pages – page breaks of course!
I wrote 10 1/2 pages this March, only 2 1/2 pages in April, 10 1/2 in May and I have so far written another 10 1/2 this month. April I was on holidays painting doors and architraves in my house and my Mum came to stay. I was also checking over my Darlinghurst research. In May the next chapter required a bit of research in France and I’m currently researching crime scene practices in the 1920s regarding the discovery of a dead body.
By keeping this simple record you can actually see your month by month progress and highlight the months, where perhaps you have fallen behind. If I’m doing a lot of research, I will often note that research on the days I’m not writing. After all, it is progress too! If you don’t keep a record of each page written, give it a try. Don’t forget to record those half pages, keep at your writing and watch the pages mount up!
Trusting your instinct when researching historical fiction
Originally posted on 29/7/16
RESEARCH ABOUT PARIS:
St Julien of the Poor
Sketch of river, trees and houses
Chateau with elegant house, trees and houses
The ten sketches on the wall:
St Julien of the Poor in the snow 10
Temple de la Sibylle in Parc des Buttes Chaumont 8
St Germain des Pres highlighting the church tower 6
The red door of Notre Dame 9
Small house in Rue Saint Hilaire 2
Hotel Colbert 3
Tomb of Eloise and Abelard 4
Point Neuf 5
Arc de Triumphe in Place de l'Étoile 1
Archway of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
So, I’ve recently argued the case for hashtags. Is checking a pesky historical fact holding your writing up? No worries just stick in a # and keep writing. Well, sometimes, that just doesn’t work. In my previous post I touched on my hunt for ten sketches of Paris in the 1860s that my character would do as a young Australian woman new to Paris. I stopped writing to actually start finding those ten sketches.
I’m still missing one and as you can see from the above pic, I’m currently working out the order of the sketches that Sarah will view them as she walks around her grandmother’s room. Two she will remember: one from earlier in the novel and one from several years before. Currently the sketches are listed as I decided on them.
Now that I have begun hanging the sketches, so to speak, I have realised how right I was in delving deeper. Yes, I’ll still throw in the odd hashtag but as so often happens in writing – the scene has become so much more than I envisaged. Lena’s sketches have become her granddaughter’s roadmap to Paris. They also suggest the struggles Lena had in not only learning to sketch but learning her way around Paris.
Here is a little snippet of the chapter so far:
‘The next sketch, now that I study it, is much more accomplished than the previous one. “What a marvellous looking building,” I say of a quaint little house surrounded by taller buildings.
“I doubt whether it is there any more. Haussmann probably had it demolished.”
“Who?”
“Oh, Darling, I don’t want to talk about that bureaucrat. But I lived near there. That is Rue Saint Hilaire.”
Rue Saint Hilaire I repeat to myself and then move to the next sketch by Nana’s big window. It is of an amazing medieval building, possibly a grand house, studying the bas reliefs between the windows, set seemingly into the stonework of the building.
“Hotel Colbert. But you couldn’t stay there.”
“You couldn’t?”
“It was a private mansion.”
I’m about to ask Nana to explain but she waves a dismissing hand at me.
“I could feel that it wouldn’t be there for much longer so I sketched it but waited until I could do it justice. It was my second last sketch of Paris.”’
And now I’m off to find that tenth sketch. Happy researching peeps!
RESEARCH ABOUT PARIS:
St Julien of the Poor
Sketch of river, trees and houses
Chateau with elegant house, trees and houses
The ten sketches on the wall:
St Julien of the Poor in the snow 10
Temple de la Sibylle in Parc des Buttes Chaumont 8
St Germain des Pres highlighting the church tower 6
The red door of Notre Dame 9
Small house in Rue Saint Hilaire 2
Hotel Colbert 3
Tomb of Eloise and Abelard 4
Point Neuf 5
Arc de Triumphe in Place de l'Étoile 1
Archway of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
So, I’ve recently argued the case for hashtags. Is checking a pesky historical fact holding your writing up? No worries just stick in a # and keep writing. Well, sometimes, that just doesn’t work. In my previous post I touched on my hunt for ten sketches of Paris in the 1860s that my character would do as a young Australian woman new to Paris. I stopped writing to actually start finding those ten sketches.
I’m still missing one and as you can see from the above pic, I’m currently working out the order of the sketches that Sarah will view them as she walks around her grandmother’s room. Two she will remember: one from earlier in the novel and one from several years before. Currently the sketches are listed as I decided on them.
Now that I have begun hanging the sketches, so to speak, I have realised how right I was in delving deeper. Yes, I’ll still throw in the odd hashtag but as so often happens in writing – the scene has become so much more than I envisaged. Lena’s sketches have become her granddaughter’s roadmap to Paris. They also suggest the struggles Lena had in not only learning to sketch but learning her way around Paris.
Here is a little snippet of the chapter so far:
‘The next sketch, now that I study it, is much more accomplished than the previous one. “What a marvellous looking building,” I say of a quaint little house surrounded by taller buildings.
“I doubt whether it is there any more. Haussmann probably had it demolished.”
“Who?”
“Oh, Darling, I don’t want to talk about that bureaucrat. But I lived near there. That is Rue Saint Hilaire.”
Rue Saint Hilaire I repeat to myself and then move to the next sketch by Nana’s big window. It is of an amazing medieval building, possibly a grand house, studying the bas reliefs between the windows, set seemingly into the stonework of the building.
“Hotel Colbert. But you couldn’t stay there.”
“You couldn’t?”
“It was a private mansion.”
I’m about to ask Nana to explain but she waves a dismissing hand at me.
“I could feel that it wouldn’t be there for much longer so I sketched it but waited until I could do it justice. It was my second last sketch of Paris.”’
And now I’m off to find that tenth sketch. Happy researching peeps!
