Game Plan and UntitledSecondStory are both pretty linear stories - start at the beginning, tell the middle and then the end. Well, that's not totally true - UntitledSecondStory starts at the near end, then swings back to the beginning and tells to the near end and then the end, but it's still a pretty straight line.
I don't think this one is. I've got three voices, several scenes and one day - I think. One day to tell, not one day to write. And I'm hoping it's one of those stories where everything only becomes crystal clear at the end, but for that to work it needs two things: 1. NOT be obvious in the beginning and middle and 2. Be totally obvious at the end. That 'I see dead people' moment that Bruce Willis and the rest of us totally missed.
So I've spent my morning doing something I've not done before. I'm writing an outline. Egads. I *thought* I wrote outlines before - Word document charts that had chapters or months and listed the general events of that chapter or month, but this is a REAL outline - complete with coloured pens and index cards. It's been kinda like taking notes in a hard course - no idea wtf the teacher is talking about up there, frantically writing trying to glean any sense whatsoever and then having that moment when I go "OOOooh, now I get it" and realize the whole package just clicked into place.
Maybe not the *whole* package, but more than was there this morning.
And the unexpected side benefit? When I'm not working ON the computer, I'm much less likely to be distracted by Facebook. That pretty much doubled my productivity right there. I need more diet Coke.
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