Maggie Smith spread it all out and coded it by color. Then she could make sure that each thread was dispersed throughout the project.

When it came to assembling the vignettes, it was almost like with a poetry manuscript. I printed hundreds and hundreds of pages, lay them out on the floor of my living room, and color coded the different threads. I built the forward narrative, and I had all of these color-coded pieces–the other threads in the book. I would be like, “oh wait, the pink kind of drops out for 50 pages. I need some pink here.” I don’t even remember what pink was, but there was pink. Then I would go back and reorganize because I really wanted most of the threads to carry through without falling away. It was multiple breadcrumb trails in the woods, and I didn’t want one to drop off. (View Highlight)