Camp Countdown

One week!

Camp starts next Friday and my outline is a mess.

I have all the scenes listed, and I know (mostly) what happens when and to whom, but I’m lacking a couple important elements.

Like the villain’s motivation.

For that matter, I’m rather lacking in a villain, too. I have a couple candidates, but no clear choice.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that this book ties in rather closely with books five and seven, so a lot of my outline says to check them to see what happens.  Since I won’t have time to stop and check them next month, that’s probably going to be what the manuscript says, too.  Maybe I’ll build a timeline in the next week.  That would help, but realistically, it isn’t likely to happen.

After the final plot point on my outline there is roughly a page of notes, mostly ramblings about who and why and how. Somehow I need to integrate those notes into the outline so everything makes sense and flows in some sort of more or less natural order.

So, for now, my daily routine is to print out what I have and edit it, writing notes on the paper, moving minor things around, asking and answering questions, and trying to make it look at least semi neat so I can follow it next month.

That’s actually how all my outlines get done.  The problem this time is that I only have a week to iron out the details — and it’s really wrinkled.  I feel like I should have started this daily outline workout a month ago.

On the other hand, I do tend to work better under pressure and with a tight deadline.

And on a brighter note, I have the first day off from work to hopefully get a lot of words written.