Writing During Holidays

Like many other people on the planet, I’m busier than usual in December. Especially in the week or so now leading up to Christmas. Like many writers, the act of putting words on paper, making progress with my WIP, grounds me. I need to keep that up despite the various other commitments that call on my time and energy. So what I’ve done is plan out a way to break down my current writing project into small managable bites.

Yesterday I outlined the first act, including the turning point.  Then I went through the two scenes I’ve revised and made sure that the pov character has a goal. In my NaNo draft, I didn’t worry about stuff like scene goals, but they are the glue that hold the story together. They convince readers to keep reading to see “what happens next” which is really, “will s/he get what she wants here or will s/he be thwarted?”

So now that I have the first 50 or so pages outlined, and the scenes mostly written,  it’s pretty simple to take a single scene and revise it with scene goal (and also the plot that leads to the first turning point) in mind. So that’s what I’m doing. And I’ve got it pretty tightly mapped, with notes on each scene, so that if I do take a day or three off, I can pick it back up fairly seamlessly.

That’s the hope anyway, along with the wish that all my writer friends find ways to keep writing this month.