Wordplay has a blog entry on her Writing Routine. This is what mine is for my revision:
1. I usually write about the same time every day, though I can graze. I may pop in and different time when available and do a little. I often get up and move around because that helps me think.
2. I bounce around between 2-3 scenes, though I’ve done as many as 5. I may also leave one scene untouched for a long time and suddenly go in and write the entire thing in one sitting. Scrivener is really a godsend with this method. I tried it with Word. I won’t even discuss how bad it was.
3. If I’m adding a new scene, I bounce into One Note to get the sentence for the scene, and then return to Scrivener to create a new file (sadly, I’m mainly having to create new files).
4. If research is required — all my research for this revision is new — then I’ll get a book or visit a site for information. I’ll create an idea map of the notes, using different colors, pictures, and keywords. Only just what I need, but I can add more to the map if I need it later.
5. Once the scene’s done, I review it to see if I left anything out. I’m a big picture thinker, so I tend to hop over details and think they’re in the story when they’re not. I have to check for this and recheck for it.
6. A quick audit to see if I have at least one sound and one taste or smell. I always have feel and visual, so I don’t need to check for this.
5. A quick trip to my “non-lists,” which is a series of notes of things I wanted to make sure I did. Most people do a spreadsheet list for this, but I can’t work with lists, so I did one where I wrote anything anywhere on the paper, drew pictures, and color coded entires. So I may have a reference to mention the tuna factory before a particular scene occurs, so I check to see if I can insert it here.
6. Then I compile the story and save it as Word. While Scrivener does backups of the Scrivener files, I always do a compile into Word so that my online backup will pick up the files.
