Bummer!
It seems odd to get attached to certain days of the week, but how often do you hear people say things like, “Oh, I can’t wait until Friday.” Friday may still be three days away, but they’re pushing through their weeks to get there. Barely enough time to enjoy the weekend, and another week hits.
Why are we trying to travel so fast through the days? It’s not like we’re given extra. Even Mondays have their place, and I suppose I wouldn’t prefer other days if there weren’t Mondays to compare them with.
Like I stop calling the early hours of morning the “ugly” hours as long as I get to sleep through them, I’d campaign to sleep through Monday, but that’s a lot of sleep time. I don’t think my daughter would go for it anyway. Since she’s the one who determines my schedule, we’re stuck with Mondays.
We’re stuck with the ugly hours, too, until she learns to sleep through the night.
I have a to-do list a mile long, and finally my plot is figuring itself out for my current project. Yes, I’m still talking about Don’t Tell Your Mother, the one I had the editor give me comments on weeks ago. It just takes forever for the words to really seep into my head and do their damage.
Not really damage – I think it’s going to make it better. A lot better, I hope.
Then I read about authors who hand out their synopses to people they know looking for opinions. They use the information to develop the plot of the next novel. I could do that, but I’m not sure about the feedback I would receive from my friends.
As in, would I receive feedback?
I think I need an advisory board. A bunch of people who read books similar to what I’d like to write, and maybe not so similar, but also willing to meet and discuss a prepared outline. Sounds like fun to me…
Does anyone out there 1- outline in advance to develop the plot and 2- run it by a group of people for comments?
Ransom Noble 
I do a very rough outline or at least jot a few notes about longer stories. Especially details I know I will forget by the time I get to them. I have a reading group as well. it is informal and more or less just a call out to online friends to ask if they will take a look at a story.
But is it the story they look at – or just the outline?
The get the story in its most finished state and then add their own notes to it. It is fun to see how different people pick different parts of the story to focus on. If they all pick on the same part then I know I have a problem.
That’s an awesome metric. Definitely true if they all pick the same piece it’s a problem.
My to-do list is growing…esp. since I didn’t do everything I was supposed to do today. And I’ve got a proofreading job to do, and my first dissertation edit is going to start earlier than I thought. And there’s the usual clean, cook, keep decorating the house, all the other crap that pops up. I honestly don’t know how you do it all with a baby, too. I finally opened Ludicrous a couple weeks ago, before vacation, but haven’t been able to get back to it since!
I don’t know how I do it, either, except I don’t rest much. Ever.