#writing tracking

I know, the picture below doesn't make much sense in relation to the title. Not even without, it's just pretty stripes.

What it is, is the outcome of the ADHD part of my brain doing its job and OCD part doing its job.

The way I write is fucking chaotic. Basically, writing comes to me like a lot of tasks do, picking the tastiest pieces first and leaving the "meh" parts not done. This is the ADHD Srebrna slapping her keyboard to make pretty words and smash some scenes together to cover the pictures in my brain, or to nail down that fucking good piece of dialogue I totally need in my text.

This creates, let's say, ISLANDS of text. There is a bit of a beginning, some in the middle, maybe a grand finale, but not much of a path between them. A robust, determined alpha reader might get across, ignoring the missing passageways and lack of roadsigns. But it's not yet a novel, not yet a full road from start to finish.

That part comes from OCD Srebrna. She's the one that sits down on her butt and does the less than glamorous work of putting the islands in the row, kicking some out, marking missing ones, planning pathways and logical links between the events, smoothing out character arcs. Tearing at her hair, gnashing her teeth and cursing ADHD Srebrna for not making any fucking notes of what she meant by a particular remark in THAT ONE SCENE.

(spoiler, she didn't mean anything, it just sounded nice...)

OCD Srebrna removes all the accidental circular references, risky new threads and plots, accidental name changes or double character introductions. Then she marks it all up in Scrivener and makes careful plans which scene she plans for how many words, adds titles, dates of events etc. And she's the one who prepares the space for working, for either her to just ADD THE MISSING CONTENT, or for ADHD Srebrna to get hyperfixated on the task again and catch the planned (lightly) scenes and run happily to write them.

This below is the result of her pains. Green sections mean text done as well as I could, usually after 2-3 reviews. The brighter the green, the better I feel about certain area.

Pink is "written full but rough". Yellow is "written but needs checking of facts". Red or white is "scene missing here". Orange is "needs expanding" and brown is "needs a rehaul". Blue is "to be cut up"; usually results of sprint writing, marathon writing or falling asleep at my keyboard.

So, yeah, you can see now how I manage, by tight marking rules and Excel skills, to keep control over where I am in the text, what's ahead of me and what kind of a promise I can make to my beta readers...

The final exam starts now

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