I think I’m ready for NaNoWriMo and book 2! I took a short break from my book 1 rewrite to work on my outline this week. The colorful stickies are my chapter by chapter outline, I have a bunch of handwritten pages of each MC’s story arc (middle left), and I have a timeline (bottom left). My outline is still a little sparse; it’s only 30 chapters verses the 50+ of book 1 and those 30 are pretty vague, but this is really a first draft (third rewrite, but still a first draft since the story kept changing). Book 1 was a second draft, so of course I know more about what goes into book 1. Basically I'm trying to not feel like I'm unprepared just because the entire story isn't fleshed out yet. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It's got character arcs and subplots. It has a main plot which was something I realized too late that the previous two versions of book 2 didn't have. With just that I should have a functional story this time. ;)

I have a week and a half until NaNo and I’m going to put this aside until then and go back to finishing book 1. I have about 6 chapters left to write in that and I’m hoping that finishing the tail end of that and taking time away from this outline will leave me inspired yet also prepared once I move onto the second book. Fingers crossed!

~Meri