I am, by nature, a snippet writer. I write things out of order, with half-baked scenes thrust onto paper before I dash to another time and place. This is not without its problems. For one, character development is made a bit more difficult. My characters interact in the future the way they would in the present (if that makes sense).
For another, it makes the whole timeline a bit difficult to figure out. I have a basic idea of what I want to happen when (for example, the first MC death occurs in mid-August), but post and prior to these events are a bit shaky.
I also partially blame this habit for my inability to actually finish a manuscript. I dash here, there, and everywhere while neglecting to complete the blasted thing. Like a butterfly am I, going from story flower to story flower. Sometimes crosspollination occurs (and that works every now and then).
Hopefully, this will change with Per Ardua ad Astra (such a mouthful). I’m really trying to get things moving forward. Dedication to one story. And if I get distracted, I’ll write a short story (not start a different novel).
Ned Wolfe 
I’m a linear writer, although books come to mind by scenes. The challenge for me is connecting these dots in a coherent whole. Sometimes, no matter how cool a particular scene maybe, if it doesn’t fit into the larger narrative, I have to chuck it.
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I’ve had that problem, too, especially if I write point C before A and need to come up with a B to make everything connect! Usually I just write awful scenes to fill in the blanks. 🙂
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Personally, I am a patchwork writer(read: thinker). I know several disparate scenes–or images or events, and occasionally have a vague idea of the whole. I might have a really good picture of this character, or that setting, or some object down the street. And my storytelling process conists of piecing all this together into a coherent whole.
Now, I tend to write linearly. But that’s not how I construct story. It’s such a paradox. If only the two processes fit more smoothly, I could pump out those manuscripts and already have the best out on sub. But that’s just not how I work. It seems like that’s how I do everything, which is why I’m always being called a space cadet.
To which I reply: “I wish.”
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The strange thing is, I’ll write linearly in a random pattern. For example, I started writing a scene that takes place after a MC dies (of course, writing this before MC has been introduced), and proceeding on from there. And going back to the beginning. And then the end.
I’m almost wondering if I should just start from the middle.
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Sounds like you are very free in ideas, that’s natural to let them pollinate every so wherever they lay their tiny patter of feet.
I used to be the same, but now I just stick at it, especially if it’s a story that needs to be told as a whole. I don’t think of beginning nor end, just express it as it flows.
Snippets are good, into the materialisation of whole stories and they help you be more in tune with what you would like to manifest, or not to create. Do you write short stories?
If you are just flowing in parts of the story, well maybe try adjoining them, without doing it in a set way or to think like they’ll have to flow, as when you join in different scenes you can still surprisingly make them work, but without the extent of faffing around, but just letting them stick out as they should be. It only takes a few minor edits to make that whole story shine as it should, with the same scenes you carry.
Or even go back to all the scenes you have written, and change the characters to that of one you are writing now.
Writing these scenes doesn’t need to be a force, can just move on from your most natural expressions and be a follow on, from the one’s you carry on writing in. Just remember not to get tied in to them, or take it too seriously as that is where all else fails.
Continue to be that butterfly you are, but grow on it and make the best of it. 🙂
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