A Question for Fellow Writers

What do you do with all your old notes?

Last night was my monthly meet up with my critique group and the topic of critique paperwork came up. The majority of our group does as I do:

• accepts the paper-based copy of the critique
• goes through it page by page as we edit and update our WIPs
• files it away for future refernce

One brave soul in our group updates his work in progress and then tosses all the critiques he received!

I’m not the only one who was sitting at the table stunned and amazed. Why would you ever throw out notes? What if you needed to refer to them later?

I’m in the process of editing a novel. To the right of me, on my desk, are all the copies of the critiques I’ve received from my current group, and some from fellow on-line writers. (Those I could have kept electronically, but when I refer to one document and am typing on another, I like to have a hard copy.)

As I’m working, I realize that I’ve worked through some of these crits already…but advice I wasn’t willing to take a few weeks or months ago is starting to look pretty good right now. What if I’d tossed these papers when I’d done my initial re-write?

I know of one author who painstakingly logs into a spreadsheet each comment from every critique she receives for a story. I’m not sure if she tosses out the critiques when she’s done — though having gone that route she certainly could. But to me, that just seems like too much work. I’d rather spend my time writing something new.

So: what’s your process? What do you do with your critiques once you’ve evaluated them…this inquiring writer wants to know.