Today is my husband’s birthday, the big Four-One. I’ll have the kids make him some pictures before he gets home from work, but otherwise we won’t do anything, which is the way he likes it. I’ll let him choose a football card on eBay for his present. He’d rather pick it himself, anyway. Hm, maybe I could make him his favorite dinner…

Yesterday I finished typing my scenes into yWriter, and today I’ll print the list to figure out where the new material needs to go. I’ve never been an organizing writer and had put myself in the “seat of the pants” category, however, I think I’ve found the circumstance when using a system can help me. It’s long since I pants-seated the original vision, and I have piles of scenes which need cohesion and a majorly-revised plot full of holes. I tried the notecard method, but it didn’t work for me then. Writing the long synopsis at the request of an editor broke things loose for me, allowed me to fix the plot problems, and gave me a direction. Next time I won’t wait so long before writing a long outline, and I won’t turn my nose up at organizational tools. I will no longer put myself in a category, neither pantser nor outliner, because labels are so limiting! Damn it!

Another thing I need to do is read some new books. The f/sf section of my library has old stuff plus each book carries the deadly air freshener molecule, so that’s out. I’m poor, so I can get just a few books off the bargain table, maybe. I thought about getting into one of those book-trading rings, but they’d smell like all the houses they were in before. I’m going to just open my mind to possibilities and see what comes up. One of the most limiting things I do to myself is to assume I know all my options, which makes me blind to others. My vision is wide open.