Prioritizing or Procrastinating?

My work schedule has shifted over the past few weeks, for a variety of reasons. And just as with anything that you develop a routine for–exercising, dieting, writing, etc.–when your routine gets interrupted, it's hard to get back on track. As most of you know, I have a side-hustle job, which at times pays more than my royalties from all my books. When the stove in my house hid the skids, I needed to find money to buy a new one, or stop cooking. Trust me when I say the "stop cooking" option held some appeal. But since that wasn't feasible, I went shopping over Labor Day for a new stove.

I got a good Labor Day sale price, but I still had to find the money to pay for it. Which meant doubling up on my efforts with my side-hustle for at least a month. So I switched the order in which I put together my day. Instead of working on the WIP first thing, I've been writing my articles first, and then, if I have any creative energy left, I work on my WIP. But a couple things are hanging me up. First, when I had to put down the WIP, I was at a sticky part where I needed to spend time doing some research and then write a fight scene. Second, I started using the book Save The Cat Writes a Novel, so I'm rereading the chapters I've already written to make them better, and make them adhere more closely to the suggestions in this book. And third, I find my brain is only capable of coming up with 1,200 words a day, regardless of whether they are used in the formation of articles or as part of my novel.

So am I prioritizing or procrastinating? Once I accumulate the funds needed to pay for the stove, I'll let you know.

Save The Cat

For years, I've been using Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet from his Save The Cat book to formulate my novels. It's basically for screenwriting, but I've found it quite useful in plotting out the basics of my stories. I can quickly fill in a beat sheet and determine if I have enough of a story line for a complete 70,000 word product. If I'm successful in filling in all the boxes, I'll go forward.

I was in the middle of the second book in my Revolutionary War series when life interrupted my orderly days. I abandoned the project for weeks, and then, when I was finally ready to get back into it, I couldn't get a grasp on what came next. One of my writing buddies suggested I take a look at the next version of Save The Cat. It's designed specifically for novel writing, not screenplays. I bought the book, thinking I'd apply it to the story I had written thus far. I'm probably at 25,000 words, so I've got a lot of material to filter through. 

So, the other day, I brought up the first chapter. Following along with the Novel version of Save The Cat, I got through the setup for the heroine and moved on to the next part of the first act, where the theme must be stated. According to the book, "a character (usually not the hero) will make a statement or pose a question to your hero or heroine that somehow relates to what the person needs to learn by the end of the story." I was already in trouble. 

I already had a secondary character in the scene, so I used him to pose the question to the heroine. Reading through the scene again, I quickly saw how much stronger the scene had become by my additional words, which fleshed out the secondary character and put the heroine on edge with his summation. Now I have to do the same with the hero. 

For all you writers who follow this blog, I highly recommend this craft book. Save The Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody not only saved the cat, but may have saved my book. Thanks, MJ, for the suggestion.