I often use word count, although I'm not sure if that's quite what you're going for. I do jump around quite a bit -- though not as much as you're talking about here -- so I note my starting document word count at the beginning of each day and then my final count at the end of the day, with some fudging along the way to allow for words cut out and, to the extent this is possible, words revised. Basically I am obsessive about tracking word count. But I know for some people, that's a total creativity killer.
While I'm working on it, I copy/save/renumber my document every time I make systematic changes to it, whether it's a major revision, changing a major characteristic of a main character, rearranging scenes, etc. I usually go through a number of 0.# drafts (0.4, 0.5, 0.55, etc), aiming to end up with 1.0 being my first "completed" draft (still with minor holes, but there is definitely a beginning, middle, and end) ... but sometimes I don't get there until 2.0.
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Date: 2014-01-15 11:13 am (UTC)From:While I'm working on it, I copy/save/renumber my document every time I make systematic changes to it, whether it's a major revision, changing a major characteristic of a main character, rearranging scenes, etc. I usually go through a number of 0.# drafts (0.4, 0.5, 0.55, etc), aiming to end up with 1.0 being my first "completed" draft (still with minor holes, but there is definitely a beginning, middle, and end) ... but sometimes I don't get there until 2.0.