I’m exhausted. Not for fun reasons like wild partying or insane writing frenzies. I blame the puppy. As a rule, I don’t fall asleep before 1am, midnight if I’m sick. And even though hubby takes the puppy out when he gets up (5:30 in the morning - ack) she’s still up at 7 wanting out, wanting to run, to play, to bite at my toes. I’m not a girl who functions on less than 8 hours of sleep (10 for maximum efficiency) so this is pure hell. She’s a really cute puppy though.

So what does that have to do with plotting? Nothing LOL - but its my excuse for dragging so slowly. I’ve read through my proposal and made some minor revisions, and now its time to dive into the next 250 pages. Except I looked at it and came up blank. I had a synopsis, details, a story plan… but it just looked blah.

So I pulled out my handy dandy plotting board. Now, this isn’t nearly as fun to do alone (so many things aren’t ) but it does work solo in a pinch. I make a grid for the chapters, then start brainstorming scene ideas. I jot these down on colored stickie notes (oh the joy of color coding) and put them where I think they fit (then I shuffle then around a bunch, until I’m happy). The colored stickies let me see how the different story elements work (is there enough love stuff? enough secondary plot?).

When I first started this story board, it was woefully color-free. Only a few stickies here and there, and I wanted to beat my head on the floor. I know it’s exhaution, because all my mind can see is fog, instead of story. So I narrowed the focus and just tried to plot out each element. The heroes “stuff”, then heroines. Sub plot, love stuff, etc… It actually worked. Oh, I’m not done. Its still rough and there are a lot of holes, the flow isn’t right and its still too small. But I was too tired to finish (that and the puppy had to go out again), but I have a solid handle on the story and am really liking how it feels.

Either that, or I’m so exhausted I’m just telling myself I like it :blank_ee: