I'm plotting . . .

Yes. I'm plotting. Not someone's demise. Not a diabolical plan. Noooooo . . . I've been taking the last month or so to dig in to my novel--piece by piece and really work on my plot. I like shifting back and forth between working on picture book illustrations and writing, but I've had the last week to focus only on my novel while waiting for my revision notes on my picture book dummy from my super-fabulous agent (who says notes are on the way! yippee!).

Katie sent me over to the Plot Whisperer's blog and told me about the Whisperer's thirty day plotting method, specifically designed with NaNoWriMo participants in mind--i.e. it works best if you have a full draft of your novel. Scroll down to the month of December if you want to see the step by step instructions, but the Whisperer has you doing things like this:

*Figure out important scenes of your novel from your memory

*Identify themes that keep emerging

*Draw plot diagrams galore for different sections of your novel

*Divide your novel up into three very distinct sections

*And, so on . . .

Full disclosure: I didn't do these exercises in exactly thirty days--sometimes I would do two a day and sometimes I would take longer to work on some of the exercises, but WHOA. I uncovered some glaring problems and I am now much more clear about what the heck I want my book to be about. And, I thought after the seventh draft that I was actually through. Ha!!

As you can see, the process has been very tactile.

Lots of ink and pens and working with the computer off--which has kept me from being distracted by the ping of my email alert and the constant beckoning of delicious blogs like this one and this one and this one . . . um, was I saying something?

Now, go forth and plot!

sf