Just in case it can help someone who's struggling, I've had some more thoughts on putting fiction on the page - well, how I go about it anyway - making notes on it while I've been doing my current short story. And I think just about everything below would be how I go about a novel as well. Except that it's 2 years rather than 2 weeks!
1) I get the idea, mull it around in my head for a day or two.
2) I open a blank Word file and put a title at the top - anything relevant will do for the start as it may change later - then save the file as that title to my /Writing Shorts WIP folder.
3) I set the file's font to Courier New, 11 point, with 1.5 line spacing. This is best for roughing out and with multiple print-offs later it saves on printer ink.
4) I type a heap of ideas, roughly in the sequence of the story, doesn't matter how it sounds, get the feeling down as fast as I can, and leave big spaces between the bits for later scribblings.
5) Print it off, back it up, make a desk-top short-cut, put that in my Current folder on the side of the screen. (Backing up - I NEVER use the Cloud, but keep a good-sized USB stick always plugged in, which I swap every few weeks. Better than having it in some basement in Romania. Pedantic I know, but I leave nothing to chance).
6) I put the draft and a biro in one of those clear plastic A4 folders with the press stud flap, do a name tag in texta on a scrap and slip that in too.
7) At any time of the day, when the thoughts or lines or paragraphs comes to me, I scribble that down and shove it in the folder, or do it straight onto the draft somewhere.
8) When it's my solitary writing time, I sit in my recliner with the draft on a stiff back-board and a sandwich and a Johnnie Walker-laced coffee at hand, get in the zone and write write write, whang in notes all over the place, anywhere they'll fit, lots of loops and lines and arrows, scribble scribble scribble.
9) First chance I get, I type it all up, fill it out and make more notes as I go, then do 5) above.
10) Bit by bit it gets cleaner and better, less and less changes, then one day when I think it's finished, I print it off and put it away for a fortnight, then drag it out and do another edit.
Okay, that's about it. Give it a try if you reckon you have a short story in you. And everybody does. Well, you and I do, the others just don't know the fun of putting it on the page. Sad souls!
Cheers....
Trev
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