Once more, with feeling! (an IWSG post)

Oh yes, indeed! That's what's going on today - it's the first Wednesday of the month and that means it's time to welcome all my fellow insecure writers (brought together by the wonderful Ninja Captain himself, Alex J Cavanaugh, and his equally wonderful co-hosts) - so here goes:

HELLO MY DEARIES!!!!

I hope summer is treating you well so far. Mine has been rather unspectacular - I've been to the beach in Spain, yes, but mostly I've been working. There's so much to do, so little time! (I do believe there's a quote from Cecil Rhodes to that extent, though I could not find it - anyone out there who can enlighten me?) Other than the time factor, there's also the small problem that very little gets done around here because

a) everyone is on holiday
b) it's really hot here right now and nobody has energy to do anything
c) it's really hot here right now and everybody is short-tempered

so what the hey, I'm off on holiday next week. Yay me.

But wait, we're a WRITERS' support group, aren't we? Ooops. You don't care about my problems (ok you're all super nice so maybe you do but you know what I mean right?), you want to hear about WRITING!!!

Well, other than an abysmal failure to complete Camp Nano (I admittedly signed up on a total whim) (not that I'm making excuses or anything) (seriously, no excuses) (ahem), it's been going rather well. I'm working on one particular story right now (have been, exclusively, for over two weeks which for my story ADD is rather good), and I haven't gotten lost yet. I've gone back to one of my first and favourite methods of writing (or rather plotting)...drumroll please...

The Scene Card!! 

Ta-daaaa!!!

What is a scene card, you ask? (if you know already, feel free to skip this bit...) Here's what you do:

• take an old-fashioned index card
• write a title for the scene at the top
• make notes on who's in the scene, where it takes place, what happens
• take the next old-fashioned index card
• write a title for the scene at the top
• etc etc etc until the end

Why do I use this system? Because I'm not very good at writing things in order, nor am I good at plotting. So I write a scene, make a scene card for it, put the card in a pile. Sometimes I'll just make the card and write the scene later. I can then shuffle and re-order the cards at will, in an attempt to fix a plotline. I've been known to use different colour index cards, too, for different key characters or different subplots (think pink for the romance subplot). 

I've also, to my endless joy, discovered that this system works rather well with Scrivener (and I love Scrivener, NaNoWriMo be praised for that). 

So that's what I've been doing, writing-wise - rediscovering my roots. How about you? What's going on in your writerly life? Do you use index cards, too, by any chance? 

All the best,

ps. go HERE for the list of participants