Hello, everyone!

Welcome to my blog series, Monthly Journal. This month, I’m right on time…Yay! I can’t believe it’s the end of the month already. If you haven’t been following my blog series, and you’re seeing this for the first time, this is why I started my series.

I decided to do this blog series, for several reasons. I want to let you know what I’m doing every month…to be accountable. I also want you to know how…plotting my book series is going. It’s going slow…really slow. Plotting is not easy for me. I feel like a square peg being shoved into a round hole. To be honest, I’m struggling with it. I’m a plotser…not a plotter, or a pantser, and I’m definitely not a planner. At this point, I’m not sure I’ll ever be a plotter or a planner. A few of my friends and my husband, have told me to stop plotting, and just keep writing. I was so tempted to do just that, to give up on plotting and just write. But then, my stubborn side kicked in, and it wouldn’t let me. I really want to do this! I want to become a plotter. I want to write faster. I want to be organized. I want to finish my book! I’m a linear, slow writer, and I edit as I write. I know, I’m not suppose to do that, but I do. I can’t help it! If only I could write as fast as I come up with story ideas. That would be amazing! There’s so many story ideas floating round inside my head right now, I need to get them out, I need to make some room in there.

It’s getting a little crowed!

When I get stuck, and I don’t know where I’m going…I tend to stop writing. When I feel pressured about plotting, I step away from it. I feel like I’m going around and around in a vicious circle. I don’t know if I should go up, if I should go down. I feel like I’m never getting anywhere, and I don’t know how to get out!

I usually take a few notes, then start writing, and somehow those notes seem to get lost in the piles and piles of notes I have. So, I’m working on getting organized. I write like I’m driving down a dark, and twisted road, in the rain. I can only see what my headlights show me, and sometimes my headlights go out, that’s when I can’t see anything at all.

The further down the road I go, the more I see…as long as my lights are still on.

When I got to the middle of my first book…I stopped writing. I realized that I didn’t like not knowing where I was going. That’s when I knew my husband was right. Crap!!! He bugged me about outlining all the time, and of course, me being an ENFP, Scorpio girl…I didn’t listen.

Lacy, my main character, has been stuck in the library for more months than I’d like to admit too. I know the next few scenes, I just haven’t written them down yet. They’re trapped in my head somewhere. When I was writing the library scene, I found out that publishers want the first book finished, and an outline of all the other books in the series. I’m not really sure if this is true, but it derailed me. It derailed me, because I haven’t nailed down my ending yet, and finding out that I have to outline all the other books has overwhelmed me. I’ve tried so many different ways to plot, nothing has worked…so far. Right now, I’m doing the Snowflake Method, and if this one doesn’t work, I have a backup plan. Harmon’s Plot Embryo.

Fingers crossed that this one works!

Another reason why I’m doing this blog series, is to hopefully help someone else, who might be going through the same problem with plotting a book series.

Why didn’t I just write a standalone book first?

Writing a book series is difficult!!!

Another reason why I’m doing this blog series, is to help me get more organized, to help me keep track of what I’m doing, how long it’s taking, what’s working, what’s not working.

Last month, I posted about being in Step two of the

Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson

https://melindamariealexander.com/2018/05/03/monthly-journal-april-2018/

Step two is to write a one-paragraph summary with five sentences. 1) Explain the setting and introduce the lead characters 2) Explain the first quarter of the book, up to the first disaster, where the hero commits to the story. So far…so good, I did this part and then I froze. 3) Explain the second disaster, where the hero changes her/his mode of operations. 4) Explain the third quarter of the book, up to the third disaster. which forces the hero to commit to the ending.

I’m still in step two, but I’m happy to say that on May 4th, I found #3. I found my second disaster. I’ve actually had it all along. I just wasn’t sure about it. Wasn’t sure if it was strong enough, powerful enough. My ending has been getting clearer also.

I can move forward in my story now.

I think I just might see the end of the tunnel!

This blog post is getting long, so I’m dividing it up into two blog posts…part one and part two. If you haven’t seen all of the Monthly Journal blog posts, I’ve made it easy for you. Just click on Monthly Journal at the top of my blog, there’s a link to each blog post.

Here’s part two!

https://melindamariealexander.com/2018/05/31/monthly-journal-may-2018-part-two/