Organizing your drafts, is one of the most important lessons I learned. As a beginning writer, I never realized how confused you could get over one small manuscript. Internal Dialog: Ok which one of these versions had the steamy bathtub scene, and which one had the underwater lovemaking session? Oh, crap! Did I delete the sword fight?!
I purchased a writing software program months ago called Scrivener, but had not used much of it since. It places note cards on a cork board with scene details, and then when you click a card, you can type in the scene. When it comes time to send in a sample of your work, you just pick your scenes and copy them into a virtual binder and export it as a text file, word file, or whatever you need. All your scenes are still intact, you just pick and choose what you want to put in your manuscript and where you want to put it. This allows easy rearrangement with only a little revision on transition. I highly recommend it if you own a MAC. If you are a PC user, there may be a good counterpart out there.
This week I plan to move all my scenes out of Word and Pages and into Scrivener. Don't ask me why I am using two programs, I have no idea. Newbies mistake I guess. Once all my scenes are in place, I could become a contest junkie! It is so exciting to have the prospect of having my work read by an editor instead of sitting in a slush pile. Happy Writing!
