When the dust settles....

So it's been almost a week, since I finished draft 1 and in that time I've made some intense discoveries, bigger than the edit problems from the last post. Mostly I'm just excited to dive back into the story, but this time I wanted more of a game plan. Don't get me wrong, there was something totally and completely freeing about writing without a plan, but it shows. The draft shows there was a no real plan except this thing called a Blue Light and it's important--sort of.

First drafts to me seem to be the messiest forms. They are just me putting pen to paper or perhaps pounding out words on a keyboard. Its a time for my imagination to say, here go for it, take me somewhere new. Explain the world around me. Ready, set, go!

There are portions that are fabulous I want to keep them just as they are, but there are more sections where I am like "dear God what was I thinking!" Before I jump head long into a semester of intense edits I wanted to see what I had come up with. Where were my characters, the setting, and how about that thing called plot?

I tore into the 79 page document without the use of a red pen. That's right no editing, I wanted to know exactly where I stood. Six pages of outline later I know that I am knee deep in mud. It's better than being chest deep, but still problematic. I see the potholes and can start to fill them in and the places where characters sort of re-hash conversations, which two of them I think will just continue to do otherwise they wouldn't talk to one another.

I feel tat now I understand some of my characters journeys better. At least where they go emotionally, and how to pick those up. Some scenes to flesh out and others that most definitely need to be added in the next draft. Now onto the post-its to start to fill in those gaps!

Any editing suggestions? Red pens, colored ink, post-its, hard copy, computer docs?