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[lacygrey]

How is everything going with the ficcing today?
Word counts? Sighs of relief? Panics? Gripes? Celebrations?

This week is my first time doing check-ins - or any remotely mod-like activity ever, actually. So hi there, I'm Lacy and I'm writing a long Hikago fanfic at the moment.

Question for discussion: How do you organise your writing? Do you find you can write in chromological order, or that you feel like jumping straight into the middle scenes. Do you put the whole story in one file or split by scene while you are working? If so, how do you keep it all together on the computer/internet, especially if you are working on multiple fics at the same time. Where and how do you back-up? Do you keep all your old versions?

Comments

[meridian_rose]

I have problems writing the middle bits of fic; I usually start at the beginning or with a key scene, and I often know exactly how it will end, but drawing all the pieces together can be very difficult. I do, however, tend to keep it all in one file, with things like page breaks, italics and coloured text to mark separate sections and my notes.

I sometimes back up to Dropbox, and/or sometimes mail copies to a web-only email account.

Sometimes I save the file under a new name so I can keep both versions, especially if I've changed direction in a fic and made a major re-write. After all, I might want to go back and check on the original details, or salvage some sections/ideas for other fic. I only do this for chaptered fic normally though.

[lacygrey]

I have problems writing the middle
Me too, sometimes the middle ends up a jumble of scenes that need to be put in a sensible order.

tend to keep it all in one file

My present fic is several files (I start a new file each time I start a new scene). I'm going to try printing it all on one-sided paper an then laying it all out on the floor. When I'm clear on the order of the middle scenes I'll try sticking them all the files together in one file.

As for backup. Ive just opened a Dropbox account too. A few people mentioned it here. I want to try it out as my fic files are spread across two hard drives, two memory sticks, two Google docs accounts and 750 words. Yeah, I'm pretty disorganised and the writing's been spread throuh time but this sort of thing didn't cause me problems when I was only writing short fic.

I tend to get old versions, new versions and keep pre and post-beta versions (as I'm trying to learn from my betas), all multiplied by scene (file) and places I store them. It gets a bit messy. Plus I like things to be hidden from the prying eyes of family and have them backed up.

[meridian_rose]

That's a good point about betas; that is another time I keep extra copies. It's very useful to have something to look back on. And you can never ever have enough back ups :D