Writing is Anything But Neat and Clean

I wish writing a novel was always neat and clean, but it isn't.  Here's a recent example.

So there I was, having sequentially reached Chapter Sixteen in my first round of deep edits, when I realized I needed to add four new scenes.  But where did they belong?

I took the lazy route at first and decided to put them all together in a single chapter, which I'd place either just before or just after Chapter Sixteen.  There.  That took care of it.  The road I was on wouldn't get interrupted too badly, and, soon, I'd resume sailing on to the finish line.   

But, the more I thought of it, the more I'd realized this was a mistake.  Or was it?  Would the reader really care where these four new scenes were if they weren't rooted in the time frame of my novel?  Did the time frame even matter?  Wasn't the content more important?  Couldn't I get away with including them, keeping all but the more essential details vague, so I wouldn't have to disrupt my process?

No.  In a word, no, I couldn't.

It took me a while to get there, but I knew when these scenes happened, within the context of my novel, mattered.  That, for the storyline to make sense, these four new scenes needed to figure into the rest…somewhere.

And, worse, they couldn't be grouped together.  They had to be separated–at least three of them did, grouping the last two because they belong together–which meant so many things:

1.  I needed to figure out where, in the context of my story, each of them took place, in terms of the right time frame (that is, seasons of the year), and in relation to the scenes before and after.
2.  As much as I didn't want to do it, it meant everything else I had in place to keep my novel organized had to be changed.  This included:

• my large filing system
• my picture box filing system
• my outline
• my chapter and scene synopsis quick reference sheet
• StoryMill, including the manuscript itself and all scene profiles
• the numbers at the head of each chapter.

Ugh!  Today, I finally faced the reality of what had to be done and did it.  Hours later, everything is in order, and I'm ready to resume deep edits tomorrow, knowing if I have to refer to anything in the process, it will be in the place where it belongs.

Moral of the story?  Sometimes, we have to take one step back, so we can take two steps forward the next time we sit down to work.  Would I have rather kept working on deep edits again today?  You bet, especially after missing out on so much work during the Christmas season.  But I knew I still faced the reorganization of all my materials, and I couldn't get out of doing them sooner or later, unless I decided to get rid of the three new chapters (comprising the four new scenes), which I know I can't do because they are an integral part of telling my story. 

Neat and clean?  Not novel writing, as I've learned.  And I expect I'll face the same thing again very soon.  But the result will all be worth it.

(And, of course, there's a lesson in here for me–as there always is–that patience is a virtue, and there's no substitute for keeping yourself organized, and I would never be able to do the job I want to until the niggling in the back of my mind is dealt with, anyway.  Suck it up and get it done.