A look behind the curtain.
I talk a lot about my writing process, but what does it actually look like?
If you’re like me - a little very nosy about other writers and their processes - then you are in the right place. I have promised this for years through the many different mediums I’ve had newsletters and blogs on, so now here it us—a full look into my writing process.
Today I will show you everything I use on my computer to stay organized, with screen grabs from my actual draft, my outline, what is important to my setup, and my typical writing schedule.
Scrivener Superiority
If you write on Microsoft Word or, dare I even say it, Google Docs, I’m sorry but you’re a lunatic. And if you handwrite your draft?? Straight to jail.
While I started on Microsoft when I was but a wee baby writer, Scrivener has become the home for all my writing. For me, the most important thing is keeping my actual draft organized, which you can see below. It goes off the rails the lower you get, but that’s not what matters. The draft is all that matters.
Scratch Notes: I find it important to have a place where you can jot down anything and everything that flies into your brain before it flies out the other end. You can’t look in there though. It’s like a wild meadow of untamed, thorny weeds. And very spoilery.
The most current draft: I always keep that at the top and it’s the most organized of anything in here. The green dot next to a chapter means I finished it and I don’t need to go back until I’m done with the draft. Sometimes a yellow dot will appear; I’ve written some of it but decided to move on because I was stuck or aggravated. Blue dots are breaks between parts of the book. No dot means I am still working on it right now, quit nagging me!
Chapter Summaries: While it’s a nice function on Scrivener, I don’t use these religiously. You can see that in Chapter 1 and FLASHBACK, the summary is bright white. That means I entered a summary. Chapters 4 and 6 show the actual body of the chapter, I have just decided not to continue using that method. I have a separate way of summarizing my progress now, but more on that later. Now we get into the insane bowels of my draft.
Full Drafts & Alt Chapters: I have two full drafts also housed in this document which, a. feels insane but b. is one of the reasons why I love Scrivener; its side-by-side function. You can have two chapters up side by side and compare them. I do this OFTEN, either to find information from earlier in the same draft, to look back to the last draft, or even three drafts ago and copy-paste parts I don’t need to re-write into my current draft.
Reference and Beyond: I consider everything below this nonsense. This is where my thoughts go to die. Or rather, the thoughts I thought I needed to write down but then said, “Kate, you know these things already, just write the damn draft and stop faffing about.” So there they lie, dead to me, until I inevitably re-read them when I’m bored and go, “Holy shit, that WAS a good idea, I’m going to use that.”
Writers are insane.
I have this Scrivener file backed up, in TWO places, because nothing strikes fear in me more than losing my draft. Sincerely. Sometimes Scrivener will be like, “Ha ha, I can’t find your draft.” And I will panic with such severity I nearly throw up before it goes, “Oh, actually here it is, tee hee.”
Outlining and Organizing
This took me so long to figure out what works for me. Hey, look at me. Are you listening? IT TOOK ME SO LONG.
So if you are also struggling with trying to find a way to organize your story, don’t feel bad, and don’t be discouraged.
I tried handwriting outlines in notebooks where each scene was one page.
At one point I had multiple corkboards with scenes on flashcards, but I couldn’t stay concise so each scene and would have two cards, then three, then…
Next, I tried just a Google doc. Again, I couldn’t stay concise. I needed something to trap me within the bounds of something to force me to keep my chapter or scene summaries to one or two sentences.
Enter…Google Sheets. *shrieks of terror in the distance*
I love a good spreadsheet. To be fair, I use them at work, and so I am somewhat well-versed in using them. I know that it is daunting to start with a completely blank sheet. Why is there math, I just want to outline my book!
I get it.
What ultimately worked for me, you can see above.
I needed to see what story beats I was hitting. Even if I am telling an unconventional story (a grimdark corruption arc) in an unusual format (a dualogy), it was helpful for me to know where my character was flowing through the story. It was very helpful to know how many chapters it was taking for him to do The Very Bad Thing™️, how many words into the story we break into Act 2, etc.
I needed a short synopsis of each chapter. This is what ultimately helped me decide that this was the medium I would use for an outline. While you could write endlessly within a cell, having that visual of being trapped within the boundaries of a Google Sheet cell helped me stay precise. Putting the main action point of the scene in bold helped as well. It catches my eye as I’m scrolling through the doc looking for scenes and moments.
I needed a notes section. I tend to get completely derailed if I have an idea in let’s say chapter 17 that pertains to chapter 2. I needed a space where I could just go back and thought-dump before going back to drafting the chapter at hand. You could do that in Scrivener, but having it in amongst my outline helped me visualize it as a whole and not just a random, out-of-place anecdote.
Finally, the age chart. This turned out to be invaluable. I have characters that show up across my books and if I made them a certain age in The One-Horned Heretic, and then the math didn’t math right so in the trilogy they turn out to be 130…that would be a problem.
The Setup
While it’s true you can write anywhere (and I would encourage you to do so if you are trying to establish a habit while having a busy schedule) my ability to write regularly and effectively I attribute much to my setup.
Bright light and an open window.
Color! I may wear black all the time, but a bright yellow office with a lot of pastel colors and green plants fuels my creativity.
A comfortable chair and a blankie, obvi. I love my chair, but I also added a pillow to sit on. We writers are on our butts a lot. Do what you can to be comfy.
All the essentials within reach: water, coffee, writing utensils, notebooks, inspirational quotes on the wall, chapstick, my phone that pings me to get up and move every 20-30 minutes, and a sprint clock.
Easy access to my bookshelf right behind me.
The Schedule
It didn’t take long to realize I was a morning writer. Getting up early before the hellscape of my day job ruins my day allows me to have tons of fresh energy and creativity to pool towards my book. My job can get the leftovers, idgaf.
Here is what a typical morning looks like for me.
5:00 am: The alarm goes off and I snooze for around 30 minutes because a cat has inevitably snuggled up to me.
5:30 am - 6:00 am: feed said snuggle monsters, get myself less gremlin-y (brush teeth, wash face, etc. etc.), and most importantly; COFFEE.
6:00 am - 8:00 am: this is the main bulk of my writing time. I take breaks in between to walk outside, eat, stretch, jump on my little trampoline, etc.
The biggest part of this is the walking. It’s great to get up and move when you’re doing writing sprints, but also when I’m stuck, taking a walk always unsticks me.
8:00 am - 9:00 am: I usually exercise and take care of my garden. Eat if I haven’t yet. Log my progress and tell my writing group how I did.
I average anywhere between 400 - 1,500 words in a 2-3 hour morning session like this.
So there you have it. A concise and put-together look at a process that was anything but concise and put-together for many years, and most likely, it will change again! Hope you’re having a great long weekend.