I intended to share this in April but was overwhelmed with my work schedule at my day job. I have officially begun the work of revising the first draft of my book. Woo hoo! Time for celebration.

Now that I’m a little way into the process, I feel a less like celebrating. If I thought writing a whole book was crazy hard, I had no idea how much harder revision could be. Trying to pull all these stories together to make a cohesive memoir with a story arc that hooks the reader and follows the theme I want to communicate seems like trying to lasso dandelion seeds as they float through the air.

Thankfully, I have some more time with my wonderful writing coach, Molly Ovenden. Every time a new facet of the writing life is introduced, my creative, highly distractable brain starts bouncing all over the place. Molly helps me pull it all together, create a framework or plan and sets me in motion again.

Recently I shared with her that I was working on my PC to do the revision. I was basically doing it by keeping two documents open: the first draft and the revision. I go through and copy portions of the first draft and then past theme where I want them in the storyline of the revision.

She suggested I consider printing off the entire book. That way I can literally cut and paste it together the way I want it.  With scissors and tape.

Fascinating! It makes perfect sense. I’m a visual person, so having it all laid out sounds like the answer. When I attended the Northwestern Christian Writer’s Conference, I attended a workshop titled, The Right-Brain Writing Plan: From the Ideas in Your Head to the Printed Page.

I am a member of a group that was formed after that conference. Several of the writers in that group laughed about her approach. If I remember correctly, she may have used an entire wall as her vision board. We laughed because she was all over the place in her teaching, which was hard for some of the attendees to follow along. But it was funny to me because I could relate so well! In fact, the presenter stated that she was spending a great deal of time on the vision part of her book because for those who are right-brained, that’s the most critical part. Because if we can see it, then we can get to the place where we can tell you how it happened.

I’m not sure if there’s enough wall space in my little office to piece together an entire book. But I’m willing to give it a try and find out. (If not, we do have a spare bedroom with a lot more wall space available!)

Here it is – my first draft. Ready to be cut to pieces!