Since I started writing in 2019, I’ve adjusted my approach. It takes a bit longer now, but it leads to a cleaner first draft.
In the indie author community, there are outliners and pantsers (seat-of-the-pantsers). I tend to be in the middle of that distinction. I start with an outline, usually with notes I take on my phone while I’m walking in the morning. I build from there, often with a soccer game on mute on the TV. Once I’ve got what I believe is a good draft for a book or a series, I break the outline up into scenes.
I don’t worry about chapters. I put those together later in the process. I like to work in scenes because it gives me more flexibility and it makes it easier for me to fix my mistakes. I’m always forgetting specific aspects of the story that I wanted to include in specific places that I don’t think of until I’m hundreds of pages farther along, or perhaps I left a large hole in the plot that needs to be filled in. This gives me an easier way to fix all that and improve my work.
I try to write 2,500 words a day. If it’s a good outline, that’s usually not a problem. If the outline needs work, and I let my mind take me where it will (the most common occurrence), then it takes a bit longer to hit my goal.
Once I’ve completed my work for the day, I review what I’m going to write the next day, usually strengthening the outline as I do it. The next day, I work through what I wrote the day before. I consider that my first draft when I’m done. Then I start writing fresh based on my notes from the previous day.
More time consuming? Yes. But usually cleaner.
From there, I’ll work through five more drafts. Kathy, my wife, will review and proof two drafts, my mother will proof one.\When all that’s done, the book is ready to be released. Until, right before it’s supposed to go live, I find the typo that I should have seen beforehand but read right over.
The life of a writer. Never satisfied and the work is never done.
And I always have my trusty friend/dog Loki reading over my shoulder as I write. The picture is a good one of him, not so great of me :)