The Upside-Down

I do a lot of my writing longhand, which is always a bit tricky when it comes to writing scenes out of order. I'm working on this book mostly in order, but every so often I get a vivid flash of a scene from later in the story that demands to be written down now. I may not end up using it in exactly the same form when I get to it, since it'll probably need to be sanded down a bit to fit smoothly into the narrative, but I do like to write it when I get it, since it tends to lose some freshness if I try to keep it in my head until it's needed.

My usual method (since writing these scenes on separate scraps of paper just invites losing them) is to turn the notebook upside down and start writing from the other end, so they're in the same place as the main story but not interfering with it. This works great for bits that are only a few sentences or paragraphs long, or things like future chapter titles or vague ideas ("chapter 7 good place for cryptoads reference??"). It is... less good for longer pieces.

All of which is to say that I'm currently trying to integrate a scene that is three pages long, and seriously tempted to just tear it out of the notebook rather than continue with this incessant flipping.

Honestly, what I should probably do is photograph the pages so I can look back and forth between the "live" chapter and my phone. Technology: good for something!

The writing life, my friends: spend decades refining your process so you have increasingly fractal things to whine about.

However, this chapter is going to be great.