Balance

I have a solid foothold on my recent novel attempt. Normally, I like to plot my way toward a fully fleshed-out story before doing much writing. Oh, I might indulge myself in a little bit of pre-writing but I don't do much in case I find too many holes in my story concept to proceed. However, this approach often results in frustration and abandoned ideas because it does not encourage my creative process as much as writing does.

This time, I've done a great deal of writing. I wrote before I plotted, then plotted a bit and wrote some more. The process has given me more ideas to include than advance plotting ever did!

However, the writing has run rampant. So I think that a hybrid approach is probably the best way to proceed from here. It's time to map out the story's process, tighten it up, and pull together the rest of the book. Otherwise it can feel like drowning in a sea of ideas. I won't avoid writing but I have to make sure I don't use muse writing as an excuse to procrastinate on the plotting.

I'm a pretty conceptual person but tangible, touchable stuff helps me too. So I am writing out index cards with story details and will assemble them into a story map. I think I'll take a large piece of fabric and pin them in place. Then I can take them off and bind them, in story order, into a little 2-ring notecard binder I bought.

That's the plan anyway.