I finished plotting a whole story, and not just in my head, but on writing. And not just a one page plot summary on the back of a book flap, but a whole chapter-by-chapter plot summary, along with background information on characters and places important to the story.
This may sound boring… but it’s a huge accomplishment for me as I have actually never plotting something out on paper before in almost 20 years of writing stories. This resulted in a lot of energetic false starts to these long ambitious projects that would eventually die off once the newest of world building and getting to know my character wore off. I’d then spend more time trying to perfect the few chapters I was able to punch out without actually expanding on the story and actually trying to move any plot forward. I’d even get to the point of getting the beginning of the “book” all nicely written as if I was polishing a complete piece of work.
Today I have a complete skeleton of a piece of work. I finished it two nights ago after a couple of days of intensively plotting for two hours each morning. Now I keep staring at this skeleton and I’m not sure what to do next. Do I start fleshing it out completely? Or layer by layer? Do I perfect the story chapter by chapter? Or do I write out the whole story completely before trying to fix it? Do I get second opinions on my story plot to see if it makes sense or is even interesting? (I’m actually really worried about doing this, as I fear my dedication to this story hangs on the balance on how others would view it. I worry that at the first sign of criticism, all the motivation I had mustered up to plot out a complete story would evaporate and I’d toss this project aside once and for all).
Or I could give my brain a break and read a book.
Just Words In Your Head 