I’d written a small chunk of an earlier version of this first draft that mostly didn’t work, so I bailed on it partway though and started again, moving from Apple Pages back to Scrivener at the same time.
Today, I hit the point where I was able to reuse a good piece of what I’d written that first time through — the scene, in fact, that made me realize I’d missed the best conflict in the book in that first start.
So today, with some heavy editing, I managed to save the scene that gave me that “best conflict” realization.
And came out ahead on my words, with 2563 for the day, and a manuscript count of 52,963.
Happy with that, I’m now catching up with other work.
Ah, and that’s how you make up the word count from days where you have to scrap much of what you’ve written! It’s funny how the Muse can give you something that you don’t know you’ll need until later. Congratulations on the doubled-up word count!
LOL! That’s true.
Somedays, however, to make up the wordcount and hit my 1250 after going negative, I have to write about 3500 words. Or make up the words lost over several days.
It’s a process. Back when lying to myself about how many usable words I actually had was easy, because software didn’t accurately track deleted words, the results of that were bad.
I’d head into revision thinking the process of turning in the book was going to be straightforward, only to discover that I had a long way to go — much longer that they lying numbers told me.
Now that I have a way to perfectly track what I have, it’s easier to let the bad words go, see the numbers drop from time to time, and admit that not every word I wrote was worth saving.