Saving The Cat...

Last week, I said I was sailing in First Draft Lake. Unfortunately, I got blown back towards The Great Sifting River because I didn't like how the book was starting.

Now, because I'm a planner not a pantser, I don't always write a book in order. I have a general idea of the structure, and if I can really 'see' a scene that's later on, I write it, knowing that it will almost certainly be in the book, and probably roughly where it is, and that I can fix lead-ins and exits in the first edit, to smooth out any rough junctions. I use Scrivener to write, and so I create a separate document for each scene. These are really easy to move around, if I change my mind about the order or structure. I normally spend a decent chunk of time getting this basic structure into some semblance of where it might end up (though things always change between writing the plan and writing the book!).

That's not what I did this time!
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