This week, I’ve been working on scene lists.  It’s kind of a slow process involving examining what I’ve already written, rearranging things, setting some things aside, and lots of brainstorming and daydreaming about what the story needs.

I can tell that doing this slowly is working, and yet it’s still hard not to just jump in and start writing full steam ahead and see what comes out. I keep having to remind myself that I already have a draft of this story that I did that way, and it doesn’t work. This story, because of how I set it up, needs more planning. I need to know where I’m going before I head out.

I think the pressure to hurry up and write is because I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. And of course the point of all the NaNos is to get words down. But I don’t want to get stuck in the same trap. I don’t want the last two thirds of my story to be just one haunted scene after another with no escalating conflict and no real reason why they ended up where they did at the end to have the final confrontation.

Oh, I did find a new tool to try out. I was wishing for a web-based Scrivener, so I went looking for alternatives. I found something called Storyline Creator. I just found it last night, so I spent some time moving my scene list over, and this morning I’ve added a few more scenes after a breakthrough last night. So far, I really like it. It’s a bit simpler than Scrivener, which for me is actually a plus. The only thing I’m wishing for is the ability to add images to character files (I think I’ll email them with the suggestion just in case they just hadn’t thought of it). That’s fairly minor, though, because you can add images to notes, so I’ve just been making notes for each of my major characters.

My goal for this week: finish the scene list (at least with the five major scenes and a few connector scenes) and start my one page summary.