novelist
write the book as one living doc. pin the keepers. read the reel, not the wall.
one living manuscript
a writing day
the fog comes in like a decision she cannot unmake. miriam does not look back at the shore. that is the whole book in one gesture. i think this is the line.
the highlights reel
why not a story bible
every long manuscript grows a second document: the bible, the timeline, the file of who knows what and when. it goes out of date immediately, because updating it is a separate act from writing, and the writing is what you actually sat down to do.
here the decisions are pinned out of the draft as you make them, in the same motion as writing the line that made you decide. the manuscript stays one continuous document because you chose continuity for it. the pins are what keep that document from becoming a wall you have to re-read to find your own mind.
on return, the reel is the point. re-reading the pins on this trail, reordering them, letting some go, is not filing. it is the second half of the thinking, and it is where you find out what the book is actually about.