before a story becomes a book?

I don’t know. But I spent time today rereading the last complete version of VZ. The last time I had tried to tell the story from start to finish was over 12 years ago. I was both surprised and pleased when I finished the reading. Oh, it’s a long way from anything that should be published. But I had more plot than I had remembered which was a bit of a comfort since I am often plot-impaired. And I had a couple of well defined characters that I can carry with me. I could also tell that the new ideas I had should work well into the shell that is already there. The best parts of it were, of course, the flying scenes. I say of course because that’s where I had done such tremendous research and it showed. And when I shopped this book around in the past, those were the scenes that editors always commented on positively.

So there’s more to work with than I remembered and that’s good. I’m stalling. I know it. I could say simply that I don’t know where to start but it’s more than that. It’s almost like I am afraid to start. I don’t want to call trouble to come looking for me by listing what I might be afraid of so I will, instead, make a few commitmentsfor my writing week.

This week I will block out all the scenes I already know in the book so I can see what needs more attention. For me this means a stack of index cards and each one has a line or two about the scene I know I want. I’d like to have that all done by Friday night so we’ll see how much I can get done each night after work.

In addition I’m giving myself a sleep suggestion every night before I go to bed. It’s the same one every night until I figure it out. For now the question is

“Where did DC’s sister find the piece of paper that changed DC’s life?”