Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I'm in the process of making some major changes to my plot, thanks to some input from my crit partners. It's not anything HUGE, like so big that I have to rewrite the whole thing, but it is big enough that every single sentence needs to be reevaluated under the new terms. Which is a major task, of course.

Before I started, I was freaking out a little. How do you even start something like this? My last round of revisions was much less intensive - trim the fat, add in some new scenes, and make sure everything was consistent. But that was before anyone else had seen it, so naturally my WIP was still a mess.

I decided the very first thing I needed to do was make a list. I thought this would be the best course of action for several reasons:

1. I love lists.
2. A list would help me organize my thoughts, and get down all the major revisions I wanted to do in one quick cheat-sheet. That way I could easily reference it as I went to make sure that it all matched up. 
3. But mostly I just love lists - especially the part where I get to cross things off. (I even sometimes put things on lists that I already have or that I've already done just so that I can cross them off.)

So I headed into my office for an assortment of colorful Sharpies and index cards. We didn't have index cards, but we did have bright pink shimmery envelopes left over from my wedding, which already have our wedding monogram on them (complete with date) and therefore can never be used again, but like a hoarder I refuse to throw them away (even though they were hella cheap) because I am convinced they will come in handy some day - and today they did.

I used one envelope for plot changes, and one for character changes. I'm going to start with a plot pass, and work my way through the end of the book, cleaning up all the messy ends that don't make sense with my new direction. Then I'll go back through and look at my new character directions and make sure every thing every character says and does matches exactly with their intentions. And hopefully my plan of attack will work and get me a totally, 100% shiny novel by SCBWI-LA. Which is a little less than two months away. 

I better get revising.

So, that's my plan of attack. How do you handle major revisions?