Yesterday was all about getting back into the mindset to start work on this new book. The last time I opened those files was in February, so I had to dig up all my notes and remember what I’d decided about the characters and story. Then I realized that I hadn’t done much development for the characters who weren’t in the opening scene that was part of the proposal. I had a vague mental image of a character we’re about to meet in the next scene, and I knew the role he played in the story, but I didn’t have a good sense of his personality. I also realized I didn’t even know what the main character looks like. She’s the narrator, so I was seeing the world through her eyes and never actually saw her.

So I spent most of yesterday on character development. Today I’m going to be working on a more detailed outline, figuring out what scenes there need to be and a bit of what happens in each. I have a couple more characters I need to develop in more depth, but that may wait until they come up in the book.

Some of this feels like it could be procrastination, but I think the writing will go more smoothly and there will be less rewriting if I have more of it figured out ahead of time, if I make a lot of the tough story decisions up front. I reserve the right to change my mind if something better comes up, but it does help to have a plan up front.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to move more throughout the day, so every hour I’m taking a short (using a timer to keep it short) break to do housework. I got my kitchen mostly cleaned yesterday in five-minute increments. I have to admit that it was nice to come into the kitchen this morning to make breakfast and see all those clean, clear surfaces. Last week, I reorganized one of my cabinets, getting rid of a lot of extraneous food storage containers and clearing space to put a lot of other things away or make things that were at the back of the pantry more reachable. I seem to be becoming a neat freak as I get older. We’ll see how much organization and cleaning I can do in five-minute sessions throughout the day.