Day 1 of a scene-by-scene edit

42. Tuesday 10 March 2026

Today is day one of my scene-by-scene edit. Although I didn’t write or edit anything on Thursday, before my friend Kyla arrived, I marked scenes on the printout of my manuscript ready for today and on Sunday afternoon, I cleared my desk in anticipation of starting work today. I am pleased with today’s efforts.

                I’d been looking forward to this stage of the editing (paper, pens and no screens) and it didn’t disappoint. I like to have a break between chapters, to make it easier to distinguish them. I did a selection of mini chores throughout the day. I did a wash, lit the fire, filled the coal buckets, made up the beds and started a sourdough loaf (of course!). I love this kind of work:chore balance, it makes me feel like I’ve doubly achieved.

                My goal is to finish the mark ups on my manuscript in two weeks, averaging five chapters per day. As I missed yesterday, I wanted to get through ten chapters today (I spent an unexpectedly enjoyable day waiting for my car to be serviced and MOTed). I started getting weary today after 11 chapters. This has made me realise that five chapters per day isn’t very ambitious, so I should really finish before the end of two weeks. I seem to be quite good at overestimating timeframes. However – and I suspect I’ve said this before – the next phase, actually going through all the notes, is going to take longer than I would previously have expected.

                This stage of my editing is inspired by the Curtis Brown Creative “Rewrite Doctor”. The idea is to fill out a table, with the purpose of each scene, whether it works and how to improve it. It’s a great method and has worked for me in the past. However, this time, I’ve decided not to spend so long writing notes, but to instead use colour-coded highlights. This does mean that the work, ie the changes, haven’t been made or particularly thought about. What I have instead is a heavily-highlighted eleven chapters. This might not sound hugely useful, but I am convinced that it is because I’ve highlighted all the niggly sentences and words and concepts that I know need to be improved. It’s just that I don’t think I expected so many lines and words to be highlighted! So, yes, the next phase will take longer than this mark-up.

In other news, I had excellent distractions from writing from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon while Kyla was visiting. We walked loads, visited Selkirk, Melrose, the former curling lake and emus (yes, really) at Ettrickbridge, Samye Ling Tibetan temple, Tundergarth Kirk and the poignant room of remembrance for the Pan Am 103 bombing. On Saturday, Kyla, Chris and I drove to Edinburgh, walked in snow at the top of the hills and then spent the day in sunshine and warmth in Edinburgh (though Chris caught a midday train to London). Kyla and I had cocktails at a Studio Ghibli pop-up bar, walked around Greyfriars Kirkyard and around Royal Mile, visited the Scottish Portrait Gallery, Leith and Portobello. It was good to spend time with Kyla and to be distracted from thinking about my novel.