A Tangled Mess

When I was young, I tried my hand at some of the crafts, a little knitting, some sewing every now and again. I never got proficient at any of it, but one thing I remember well is the tangled messes I managed to make. A ball of yarn would become hopelessly twisted or I would end up with knots in my thread when I attempted something so simple as sewing on a button.

It's been a long time since I've tried to accomplish anything with needle, thread, or yarn. However, when I look at the files I have accumulated for my work in progress, I am engulfed in that same hopeless feeling. I have everything from the original ideas to critiques of the original ideas, to rewrites and critiques of the rewrites. Then there are files marked "final", which is supposed to mean done, complete, and finished with no need for further editing, but I know that's not true.

Add to that the fact that I have a desktop and a laptop networked together, so I have duplicates of just about everything. Yet, sometimes I create a new file on my laptop and then can't remember if I duplicated it to the desktop. When I actually get brave enough to delete a file because I'm sure I have it somewhere else, it costs me an expedition through a dozen different directories to find the file that I'm sure contains some phrase that is absolutely essential to the entire story.

I've renamed the novel three times and also written parts of it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). There is a term in medicine that keeps coming to mind. It is called anastomosis and it basically means the joining of blood vessels or parts of the intestine. That's what this story needs, a joining together of all these little parts to the main manuscript.

I know the best way to solve this problem is to go through every single file, chapter by chapter, scene by scene, word by word and put everything in some kind of order. The "split screen" feature is nice on my computer, but I still find myself getting confused, trying to recall which directory I pulled the file from, which one was the "good" copy and which needed edits.

Was it any easier back in the day before we had computers? I can remember the stacks and stacks of paper that came out of a typewriter. I think the problem with modern technology, for me, anyway, is that I start working on a file and have to quit in the middle, so I give it some name I am sure I will remember. When I get back to it a few days later, I have no earthly idea what I named it or where I saved it. The "search" feature is nice, but unless I remember some unique word within the file, I get ten dozen files that have nothing to do with the one I am looking for.

So, my conclusion in all of this? Maybe I should give up on the novel and take up sewing again. Uh, don't think so!

Just did a search for chapter one - came up with fifteen of them. Hmmm. Better get to work!

Thanks for reading my blog.