In the Scrivener document for the book I’m currently working on (book 6 in my Titan’s Song Series) I have one folder labeled ORPHANS, and another labeled JUNK. The orphans folder contains scenes and fragments that I plan to include in the final story, but I’m not sure how I’m going to fit them in. Based on my previous experience, it’s a good bet that some of these will find their way into this book, while others will show up in some later book in the series. A few will never see the light of day. 

The Junk folder is just what it sounds like - scenes and fragments that I currently don’t plan to use at all. Based on previous experience, I’ll almost certainly change my mind about quite a few of these and they’ll find their way back into the book in some way or another, but a good portion really are junk, and I’ll never publish them. 

Currently the Orphans folder contains 7 documents totaling 9,075 words.

The Junk folder contains 16 documents totaling 22,651 words. 

Which, combined together, is a hell of a lot. 

What makes it worse is that I actually just moved a bunch of stuff out of the junk folder back into the main book because I changed my mind and decided it was good enough for prime-time. Which means it was a lot bigger than that yesterday. Like, maybe, 5,000 words bigger. 

I always expect to write a certain amount of extra stuff while finding my way through a story, but this is definitely excessive. Some of it comes from losing confidence in my initial impulses, and waffling back and forth between ideas. 

I’ve written some sections 3 or 4 different ways now. And generally I’ve found that my first ideas were usually the best ones, so if I’d trusted my gut more, things would’ve been a lot easier. 

Live and learn.